Spring has sprung and with it a renewed enthusiasm for new growth and exciting opportunities in 2024. First and foremost, we’re excited that the day is truly arriving for the groundbreaking of the Waterloo Eye Institute. Our moonshot project is being achieved to create a national centre of excellence to support education, research, patient care access and community impact. Looking ahead, the teleoptometry centre will help prepare us all for the next step in advancing primary eye care and beyond.
We'd love to see you at the groundbreaking and Alumni CE Weekend, which offer a chance both to catch up with old friends and experience some top-notch, evidence-based CE.
We seem to be embarking on serial moonshots, so in the spirit of “why not,” we’re hosting the Eye Data & AI Summit on the same weekend along with the Centre for Bioengineering and Biotechnology (CBB), Waterloo.AI, Cybersecurity and Privacy Institute. The summit will gather invited experts in artificial intelligence, cybersecurity and privacy, leaders from the optometry profession in Canada, and industry to better understand how we may be able to work collectively towards a national eye data repository.
As primary eye care providers, optometrists gather clinical data to diagnose, manage and treat ocular disease. We often work collaboratively with patients and their health team when signs of systemic diseases such as hypertension and diabetes manifest in the eye. We play an increasing role in areas such as stroke prevention and brain injury rehabilitation. Moreover, optometrists across Canada care for patients throughout their lifespan and are custodians of personal health information including medical histories, medications and diagnostic imaging.
All this longitudinal health data could help unlock advances in AI, research, enhanced patient outcomes, population health management, and public health policy development. The key is to create a simple pathway to de-identify electronic health records in a national eye data repository hosted at the University of Waterloo. This initiative could serve as a pilot to begin the process of promoting interoperability and the sharing of currently siloed health data for the benefit of all. Working with the profession, we could create a learning and research resource that would be an exemplar for the world.
Part of the excitement for a national eye data repository is generated by MP Judy Sgro’s Bill C-284 calling for a national strategy for eye care. We can’t improve what we can’t measure, and recognizing the impact of optometry in serving our communities is a fundamental building block to addressing access to care gaps. In February, senior development officer Peter Meier and I spent a day with stakeholders, including CAO and Essilor Luxottica, on Parliament Hill to lend our support to push forward on passage of the bill. People in the photo above are, from left, Senator Toni Varone, Waterloo MP Bardish Chagger, me, Senator Ravalia Mohamad-Iqbal, MP Judy Sgro, former-MP-turned advisor Don Boudria, and Peter.
We are also building a new research centre that aims to use advanced ocular imaging to make scientific breakthroughs in the eye and beyond. The Canada Foundation for Innovation and the Ontario Research Fund each recently announced $2.36 million to establish the research centre, tentatively called the Canadian Vision Imaging Centre (CVIC). You can learn more about CVIC here.
This newsletter also features an article about Dr. Robert Lidkea, who until his retirement in January, the day he turned 93, was the oldest practicing optometrist in Ontario. It’s amazing how much optometry changed over the time “Dr. Bob” practiced – but he always kept on top of it through continuing professional development. More importantly, it’s heartening to hear the love for what we do to help people see.
Please join us this June at Alumni CE Weekend for an amazing time and a great celebration for the ceremonial groundbreaking of the Waterloo Eye Institute – but if you can’t make it, please keep in touch with us through our new LinkedIn page.
All the best,
Dr. Stanley Woo
Director, School of Optometry & Vision Science
