Pearse Keane has been announced as the keynote speaker for Optrafair’s inaugural Optrafair Lecture.
As the lead for research being carried out at Moorfields into the benefits of integrating artificial intelligence (AI) technology into eye care, Keane will update delegates on its progress before highlighting the advantages that AI could bring to diagnosis and treatment of sight-threatening diseases.
In 2016, Moorfields Eye Hospital NHS Foundation Trust announced a five-year partnership with leading British tech company DeepMind. A research breakthrough was later reached when over a million anonymised retinal scans were analysed by an AI program; over 50 eye diseases can now be correctly referred via the AI with 94% accuracy.
Keane explained: ‘If this technology can be used more widely – in particular by healthcare professionals without computer programming experience – it will really speed up the development of these systems with the potential for significant patient benefits.
‘I believe that optometry and ophthalmology could be fundamentally reinvented through the application of artificial intelligence.’
Technological change and innovation are the key themes for Optrafair 20/20, which runs from April 4 to 6, 2020 at Birmingham NEC.
Registration for the event is now open at optrafair.co.uk/register.