LOS ANGELES, Dec. 07, 2021 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Eyenuk, Inc., a global artificial intelligence (AI) medical technology and services company and the leader in real-world applications for AI Eye Screening™ and AI Predictive Biomarkers™, announces today that Discovery Health launched a new Diabetic Retinopathy Screening Benefit nationwide in South Africa, powered by the cutting-edge EyeArt® AI System helping enable the detection of the onset of diabetic retinopathy as early as possible.
By launching the new Diabetic Retinopathy Screening Benefit, Discovery Health Medical Scheme (DHMS) simplifies access to screening for diabetic retinopathy and introduces cutting-edge AI-driven technology to the process. The Diabetic Retinopathy Screening Benefit follows a simple, three-level process: primary grading by the EyeArt AI System, and if required, secondary grading by an optometrist, and tertiary grading by an ophthalmologist.
“Discovery Health has always focused on incentivising, simplifying and enhancing member access to evidence-based preventative healthcare screening,” says CEO of Discovery Health, Dr. Ryan Noach. “The DHMS Diabetic Retinopathy Screening Benefit is fully aligned to this ethos. It gives members easy access to annual screening, which is conducted using cutting-edge AI technology, followed up by a clear referral process, and supported by scheme benefits requiring no member out-of-pocket payments for primary and secondary grading. Through this benefit, we hope to increase the number of DHMS members who are screened for diabetic retinopathy.”
Frank Cheng, Eyenuk President and CCO, added, “We applaud Discovery Health’s leadership for being the first payor to bring our EyeArt AI system to South Africa. The EyeArt AI System is the most extensively validated and adopted AI system for autonomous diabetic retinopathy detection in real-world settings. It has been cleared by regulatory authorities around the world, including the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), and is reimbursed by government and private payors in the U.S.”
Dr. Patrick Godard, Chief Commercial Officer at Vertice MedTech, commented, “Diabetic Retinopathy is a growing problem, and Artificial Intelligence (AI) in medical diagnostics signals a new era. Vertice EyeCare is excited to offer the cutting-edge EyeArt AI system in South Africa. The EyeArt AI system provides automated screening in a single office visit by utilising AI algorithms to assess retina images in compliance with international standards. Early identification and treatment can reduce the burden of sight-threatening retinopathy, allowing clinicians to identify patients who require immediate medical treatment without having to worry about mydriasis. Vertice MedTech believes that deploying world-class healthcare innovations such as the EyeArt AI system allows for optimising patient treatment and care.”
About Discovery
Discovery Limited is a South African-founded financial services organisation that operates in the healthcare, life assurance, short-term insurance, savings and investment and wellness markets. Since inception in 1992, Discovery has been guided by a clear core purpose – to make people healthier and to enhance and protect their lives. This has manifested in its globally recognised Vitality Shared-Value insurance model, active in 31 markets with over 20 million members. The model is exported and scaled through the Global Vitality Network, an alliance of some of the largest insurers across key markets including AIA (Asia), Ping An (China), Generali (Europe), Sumitomo (Japan), John Hancock (US), Manulife (Canada), among others. Discovery trades on the Johannesburg Securities Exchange as DSY.
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About Vertice MedTech
Vertice MedTech is a collection of South African companies with specialist skill sets, an established track record with defined medical focus areas with many years of practical skill and with experience in several medical specialities, which it offers to identified stakeholders to achieve best medical industry practise and best possible healthcare delivery to African patients. Vertice’s medium-term strategy is to become the leading specialised MedTech group in South Africa and Sub-Saharan Africa. This strategy is being implemented through a buy and build investment thesis augmented by digitisation and support function optimisation. Ethos and the Vertice management team are working together to ensure that Vertice implements operational excellence for each of Vertice’s businesses and has the resources (people, capital, etc) to successfully execute the strategy and establish governance that embeds executive freedom within accountability to the board.
About Eyenuk, Inc.
Eyenuk, Inc. is a global artificial intelligence (AI) medical technology and services company and the leader in real-world AI Eye Screening™ for autonomous disease detection and AI Predictive Biomarkers™ for risk assessment and disease surveillance. Eyenuk is on a mission to screen every eye in the world to ensure timely diagnosis of life- and vision-threatening diseases, including diabetic retinopathy, glaucoma, age-related macular degeneration, stroke risk, cardiovascular risk, and Alzheimer’s disease. Find Eyenuk online on its website, Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn.
About the EyeArt AI System
The EyeArt AI System provides fully autonomous diabetic retinopathy (DR) screening, including retinal imaging, DR detection based on international clinical standards and immediate reporting, in a single office visit during a diabetic patient’s regular exam. Once the patient’s fundus images have been captured and submitted to the EyeArt AI System, the DR detection results are available in a PDF report in less than 30 seconds.
The EyeArt AI System was developed with funding from the U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH) and is validated by the U.K. National Health Service (NHS). In addition to U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) 510(k) clearance, the EyeArt AI System has CE marking as a class 2a medical device in the European Union and a Health Canada license. It is designed to be General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA) compliant.
The EyeArt AI System is reimbursable by government and private payors in the U.S. under the newly created Category 1 Current Procedural Terminology (CPT) code 92229.
VIDEO: Learn more about the EyeArt AI System for Autonomous Detection of Diabetic Retinopathy
Discovery Contacts
Karishma Jivan
Reputation Consultant
Healthcare & Sustainability
karishmaj2@discovery.co.za
Nthabiseng Chapeshamano
Press Contact
Senior Reputation Manager
Healthcare & Sustainability
nthabisengc@discovery.co.za
Eyenuk, Inc. Contact
Frank Cheng, President & CCO
frank.cheng@eyenuk.com
+1 818 835 3585
