Vysum

Developing assistive technologies to improve eye drop medication accessibility and manage eye health for people living with dexterity challenges.

Team Size:
1
Location:
Australia
Founders:
Lorace Zhang
Program(s):

The Problem

As we age, the reduction in dexterity, coordination and memory has a real impact on quality of life. This is truer for older adults who need to use eye drops daily. For example, due to eye drop administration difficulties, forgetfulness, and lack of education, up to 80% of patients do not adhere to daily eye drop treatment for glaucoma, a leading cause of blindness affecting older adults. Many struggle to recall past usage to clinicians, making informed decisions challenging. Digital and hardware technologies have the potential to change this by providing timely interventions, personalised care plans, easier treatment delivery, and medication usage monitoring. Currently, no such products are available on the market. Older adults and people with disabilities can benefit from such assistive technologies. This defines Vysum’s aim to create assistive technologies to improve the accessibility of eye drop medication, better manage eye health, and maintain vision and independence.

The Solution

Vysum is developing an eye health platform, consisting of an eye drop delivery device, a user app, and a clinician portal. The delivery device ensures ease of administration. It reminds users when eye drops are due, and accurately delivers the correct dosage. Every drop delivered is automatically recorded. Some users use up to 4 different eye drops, which requires dozens of administrations per day. This device greatly simplifies treatment regimen, reduces dexterity and coordination challenges, and empowers independence and treatment autonomy. The user app provides personalised feedback and targeted education, all to improve users’ ability to better manage their eye health and retain vision. Clinicians have access to users’ compliance data, enabling more informed decisions. By simplifying the treatment regimen of chronic eye conditions for everyone, improving eye drop adherence and thus preventing blindness, we can save Australia up to 48 million dollars annually.