Our Work Strip

The burgeoning rates of blindness, 90% of which is in developing countries, can only be addressed when the quality of eye care is that which patients will seek, accept, and for those who can afford, be willing to pay for. While training more eye care professionals is a piece of a larger puzzle, the root causes of current inefficiencies, poor quality, and under-utilization of services lie in the poor management and lack of financial sustainability of existing services.

IEF’s passion is to change how eye care is delivered by transforming private, government, and charity eye hospitals into social enterprises that see all economic levels of society. We work closely with local ophthalmologists to develop a sliding fee structure including zero cost based on products and services from which the patients make their own choices. IEF builds capacity for quality clinical and patient services through clinical and management training, creating efficiencies and a level of self-financing, and including eye care services for the poor. By increasing the number of patients examined in the OPD by 10% to 40% year on year, increasing cataract surgery by at least 10% up to 300% year on year, and by increasing earned revenue by 10% to 30% year on year, existing resources and newly trained ophthalmologists will make a huge impact on blindness rates. Additionally, the hospitals themselves will have the capacity to afford and maintain sub-specialists such as retina specialists who require expensive technology to treat patients with macular degeneration and diabetic retinopathy. Strong institutions can grow and expand services. Weak ones dependent on outside resources cannot.