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There are almost twice as many people in the world who have smartphones than there are people who have corrected vision,” said Paul Karpecki, OD, FAAO, chief clinical editor of Jobson’s Review of Optometry, to put things in perspective at the start of the VM Global Leadership Summit session on “How Smart Technologies are Reshaping the Patient Experience.”

As moderator, Karpecki introduced the session’s other two speakers—Michael Rogers, futurist for The New York Times and MSNBC, and Yaopeng Zhou, PhD, CEO of Smart Vision Labs, who invented technology that can turn a smartphone into an autorefractor.





Rogers started with his own observations of the Summit itself. “My head is swimming, and I’m a futurist,” he said to describe his view of the “content-packed” morning’s presenters. He then provided some perspective on how change will continue and grow exponentially.

“When I look ahead, I like to look back the same distance into the past,” he said, showing how far we’ve come since 2006, when there was no iPhone, YouTube had just launched, a 24-inch LCD television cost $3,000, and Facebook had 50,000 members and you needed a dot-edu address to join. As we move forward, “change is going to happen even faster,” Rogers predicted.

 
“There are almost twice as many people in the world who have smartphones than there are people who have corrected vision,” said Paul Karpecki, OD, FAAO.
 
 
“In a virtual store, I should be able to replicate what I can do in a physical store,” said futurist Michael Rogers.
 
 
“We shrunk a 55-pound machine to the size of a deck of cards,” said Yaopeng Zhou, CEO of Smart Vision Labs, about his iPhone-based autorefractor.
 
Retailing in the Virtual World
“The virtual world is where more and more of our business will take place, and we are just at the beginning of the virtualization of the world, which will be just as big a transformation as urbanization,” he said, citing the fact that Millennials and those even younger “can create and maintain meaningful virtual relationships. If you think things are happening quickly now, just wait,” he said.

Because “the virtual world is where our customers will be, the key to create effective consumer experiences is seamless delivery. If you cannot fit into the pattern of a seamless migration between providers, sooner or later that’s going to be a problem,” he said.

From a retailing perspective, “in a virtual store I should be able to replicate what I can do in a physical store. The way we are going to get that information is through our social networks,” he predicted.

Reinventing the Phoropter
Transitioning from Rogers’ predictions to the next speaker’s introduction of an iPhone-based autorefractor, Karpecki said, “The phoropter was invented within five years of the Wright Brothers flying the first plane; imagine we’re still flying that same plane!”

While still slow to change, new refraction technologies are becoming available, Karpecki explained. “Refraction technology is going mobile,” he said, stating that optometrists can either resist these new technologies or incorporate them into their practices. “Some are going to try to compete, and some are going to work with optometrists,” said Karpecki. “That’s why we’re lucky to have Dr. Zhou, who wants to see how this technology will work best.”

Mini Portable Autorefractor
Yaopeng Zhou, PhD, CEO of Smart Vision Labs, followed with a presentation of the smartphone-based wavefront aberrometer/autorefractor he invented to help address the fact that 1 billion people worldwide have uncorrected refractive error. “The wavefront aberrometer technology is not new,” he said. “What’s new about this is we put the technology on a smartphone. We shrunk a 55-pound machine to the size of a deck of cards,” he explained about the product that started shipping three weeks before he appeared at the Summit.

He cited four scenarios in which technology such as this would be useful. The Smart Vision Backpack, equipped with the device and lenses, creates a mobile platform to provide “affordable eyeglases on the spot” in underserved communities. As an alternative refracting device, it could also alleviate bottlenecks at a clinic’s autorefractor. Because the device measures only one eye at a time with the other eye open, it relaxes accommodation, making it appropriate for screening children. Also, its portability makes it helpful for outpatient work, such as in a nursing home or other scenario in which the solution is brought to the patient. n

jsailer@jobson.com