University of Alabama Health System in Birmingham will use a $3.5 million grant to study telemedicine treatment strategies for glaucoma and other eye disease patients, according to Birmingham Business Journal.
The five-year study will focus on patient populations that are least likely to have access to eye care and are most at risk for eye diseases.
With the grant, researchers will implement and evaluate a telemedicine-based approach to treat patients at Federally Qualified Health Centers located in Alabama's Black Belt region. The research team tested the telemedicine program in a previous CDC-funded Eye Care Quality and Accessibility Improvement study.
"Using this program within federally qualified health centers will enable expansion nationwide into rural and urban underserved locations, as these centers provide primary health care services in underserved areas and treat more than 27 million people yearly at over 12,000 sites," said Lindsay Rhodes, ophthalmology and visual sciences assistant professor at UAB, according to the report.