Peek Acuity, an App for Checking Distance Vision

Peek eye screening in Kenya Photo © Rolex Joan Bardeletti

In a country with very limited healthcare resources, a lot of Kenyans barely have any routine wellness checkups, which makes it hard for doctors to diagnose disease before it advances to greater proportions. This makes innovations like Peek Acuity, an app for checking distance vision, a crucial piece in the health sector for early diagnosis.

Developed by Peek Vision, a social enterprise that develops smartphone-based systems to help health services to optimize their programs, the Peek Acuity app enables anybody to accurately check the distance vision of another person using just a smartphone. The app is available for free as a standalone app on the Google Play store. It is also integrated into their comprehensive eye health solutions, which allow eye health services in low- and middle-income countries to improve their services by capturing and analyzing information about who has been screened, followed-up, and treated.

Dr. Andrew Bastawrous the CEO and co-founder of Peek Vision, also an Associate Professor of Global Eye Health at the International Centre for Eye Health (ICEH) at London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, says Peek started as an idea in 2011, which developed into a research project at London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine (LSHTM).“The research project then developed into an independent social enterprise, Peek Vision, which launched in late 2015,” Andrew says.

Andrew says that since his childhood, he has been driven by a burning desire to help the millions of people worldwide who needlessly lose their vision because they do not have adequate access to health care.  “I started my career as an ophthalmologist (eye surgeon) working for the UK’s National Health Service.  When an opportunity came up in 2011 to study for a Ph.D. at the International Centre for Eye Health at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, it seemed like the ideal opportunity to fulfill my childhood dream,” he adds.

His Ph.D. project was a comprehensive survey of eye disease in Nakuru, Kenya.  “In 2012, I moved with my young family to Nakuru with the aim of setting up 100 eye clinics to survey and treat people’s vision problems in the region.  The challenges were immense. But the longer the work went on, the more it became clear that something needed to be done,” Andrew says.  

No matter how hard they worked, they still had to turn away people who couldn’t be treated because they didn’t have the capacity.  According to Andrew, he and his colleagues in Kenya began to wonder whether mobile technology – which was then really taking off in Kenya and across the world – could be part of the solution to some of the huge issues preventing so many people from receiving the treatment they desperately needed. 

Kenya has about 7.5 million people who are in need of interventions to prevent loss of vision, restore vision, or need rehabilitation to improve performance. Over 75% of visual impairment results from preventable causes and many of the cases like cataract are treatable and possible to restore sight, according to Dr. Micheal Gichangi Head of Ophthalmology services Unit, Ministry of Health. He also acknowledged that out of the 7.5 million who need eye health services, only 21.3% (1.6 million) are able to access eye health from both public and private facilities.

Now, their comprehensive technology has been used by their partners to screen over 300,000 people for eye health conditions. Almost 17,000 people have received treatment (glasses or medical treatment) as a result.  Peek Acuity has been downloaded in almost 200 countries, with 16,000 users. “The programs using our technology become more established, we are also starting to see how they are using the data they capture to make improvements to their services.  For instance, one program uncovered a significant gender disparity in how their services were being used which would have been invisible without using Peek,” Andrew says.

Dr. Andrew Bastawrous photo © Rolex Joan Bardeletti

According to Andrew, they were able to conduct targeted awareness campaigns which allowed them to address that disparity and ensure nobody was left behind.  This is the type of long-term sustainable impact that drives them and they expect to see many more examples of this as our technology becomes more established. “While working in Kenya with the Ministry of Health and Kitale Eye Unit we saw a school program reach close to 200,000 children, which was recognized by the African Union in 2018 All African Public Service Awards. A community-based program in the same region was recently tested and screened over 160,000 people,” he adds. Peer-reviewed published research has demonstrated that Peek Acuity is capable of accurate and repeatable acuity measurements consistent with published data on conventional vision charts.

The company works in Kenya, Botswana, India, Pakistan, Uganda, and Zimbabwe. Currently, they are in the advanced stages of setting up new programs with their partners in three more countries in Africa – they expect these programs to launch by mid-2021.

The full version of Peek Solutions is currently only available to Peek partners.  Their current programs are supported by their two major eye health partners CBM International  and Vision for a Nation.“We also work with numerous local eye health partners who are implementing our technology.  We also have a research partnership with the International Center for Eye Health (ICEH) at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine (LSHTM),” Andrew says.

The main challenge they face in Kenya is similar to what is seen across the world,  poor vision is one of the most neglected disabilities and has suffered from a historical lack of investment and capacity in almost every country worldwide. Andrew believes Kenya is very fortunate to have a well-established national eye health program with highly capable leaders.   

During World Sight Day in October 2019, to disseminate results of the capacity for treatment of eye diseases from diabetes in Kenya, Dr. Micheal Gichangi Head of Ophthalmology services Unit, Ministry of Health, said the government has adopted the use of Portable eye examination Kit (PEEK), a mobile phone technology used to screen for visual Impairment especially in schools and Fundus photography used for screening diabetic patients for the complication of Retinopathy. 

“However, like many countries, it is very under-resourced in eye health, especially in rural areas.  That is why we are so grateful to the Kenyan Ministry of Health for being willing to support and embrace innovative approaches like ours. We believe this is the only way to address the long-term issues of under-investment and capacity in eye health.  The pioneering approach of our partners in Kenya and elsewhere has been critical in helping us establish that technologies like ours are part of the future of eye health.” He adds.

In the next year, Peek Vision is working with its partners to implement their technology in several new locations, as well as scaling up their existing programs. They will also explore new government partnerships.  In the long term, they are working on new technology to add to their vision test app including innovative new ways of testing vision.  Also, radically increasing the number of programs that can use their technology. “I’m inspired simply in meeting the needs of the billion or so people worldwide who can’t access the eye care they need. I can’t believe that in this day and age, there are people going blind who don’t need to, and in fact, the problem is getting worse.  Our work with Peek is part of the solution to this global vision crisis, but there is so much more to be done,” Andrew finally says.