2010 Award Winner

Remote ROP Screening Pilot Project

Category - Improving Access

The Problem

Retinopathy of prematurity (ROP) is a potentially blinding disease that threatens newborn children. ROP is treatable with laser surgery if it is detected early enough. The problem is that in certain remote parts of Ontario, there is a shortage of ophthalmologists with the necessary expertise to diagnose ROP. Up until now, the solution has been to transfer at-risk newborns from remote hospitals to larger southern hospitals for the sole purpose of screening for RPO. This process is expensive and can cause distress and inconvenience for families.

The Innovation

A team of ophthalmologists and registered nurses at Toronto’s Hospital for Sick Children and Sudbury Regional Hospital launched a pilot project aimed at using telemedicine to bridge the expertise gap between hospitals, reducing the need for transfers. The year-long project involved teaching neonatal nurses to use digital imaging technology to capture images of the eyes of newborns at risk for ROP. These images can be viewed in real time by expert ophthalmologists at Sick Kids, allowing them to make a diagnosis of ROP from a distance of about 400 kilometres.

The Results

Over the course of the pilot project, more than 30 infants underwent more than 50 examinations. The results were extremely encouraging. ROP was diagnosed, and successfully treated, whenever it existed. This resulted in better care for the children, less distress for their families, significant cost savings for the health care system and improved efficiency at Sudbury Regional Hospital where nursing staff found good uses for time that would otherwise have been spent transferring infants down to Toronto.

Next Steps

The Hospital for Sick Children is working to expand this project to other hospitals in Ontario, and programs are already in the works at three other hospitals in the province.