International Eye Foundation (IEF), USA is working with its seven partners in India to improve the technological capabilities of their select 20 vision centers. This is part of their mission to expand the scope of eye care services at the grassroot level. The project is supported by ALCON Foundation, CSR arm of ALCON, a global leader in eye care. The vision center enhancement program will be carried out over a period of three years.
The vision centers were identified during a 3–day meeting held at Gurugram, Delhi NCR from April 23 – 25, 2023.
Vision centers are extension units of eye hospitals offering eye care services in inaccessible areas. This is vital in developing countries like India, where several barriers prevent accessing health care, including the eye.
In recent times, vision centers have mushroomed across the country. IEF’s intervention at this appropriate juncture is to better the capabilities of the vision centers in an overarching way to improve the services.
In addition to enhancing the capabilities of the vision centers, IEF is involved bringing sub-specialty care to primary eye care; strengthening monitoring, evaluation, and learning on the effectiveness of vision centers by establishing standardized indicators, monitoring systems, and a collaborative learning agenda. In addition, Susrut Foundation is being established as a major resource center to help other eye hospitals to meet the National Accreditation Board for Hospitals and Health Care Providers (NABH) requirements for certification.
The meeting in Gurugram was attended by the representatives of the partner hospitals: - Aravind Eye Hospital, Madurai; L.V. Prasad Eye Institute, Hyderabad; Dr. Shroff’s Charitable Eye Hospital, Delhi; Bansara Eye Care Center for Research, Shillong, Meghalaya; KLSM Rotary Eye Hospital, Udhampur, Jammu & Kashmir; Siliguri Lions Eye Hospital, Siliguri, West Bengal and Susrut Eye and Research Foundation, Kolkata, West Bengal.
A Leadership Summit was held in Kalimpong, West Bengal from June 19 & 20, 2022 as a precursor to this meeting. President and CEO, of the International Eye Foundation John M. Barrows and Dr. Alan Robin ( from where) also participated in the summit.
Over two days of group work and discussions; broad indicators were identified that could be used by every facility for
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