The Ophthalmology Service of the Unicamp Hospital de Clínicas (HC) announced on September 13th the project to establish a Vision Access Network. The news was announced during the celebration of the António Champalimaud Vision Award 2019, received on the 4th. The Award consists of the highest honor in the world given to institutions that develop actions to prevent blindness and was the first time that a country in America Latina was considered. Unicamp shares the award with two other Brazilian institutions - Instituto de Visão Ipepo in São Paulo and Fundação Altino Ventura, based in Pernambuco.
The Vision Access Network, being planned by the HC Ophthalmology Service, would involve all services provided in the area in other locations, such as the Hospital Estadual de Sumaré, Ame de Limeira and other outpatient clinics and hospitals under coordination of Ophthalmology. The Network will function as a pilot program to organize the flow of care in these locations.
“Our proposal is to develop a system that covers everything from everyday cases, such as prescription glasses, to complex exams, such as optical coherence tomography and cornea transplant, cataract and glaucoma surgeries, with high productivity and quality”, he announced. the head of the Ophthalmology discipline at FCM at Unicamp, Carlos Eduardo Arieta.
The FCM professor, who was in Portugal to receive the international award, explained that Unicamp's ophthalmology history has always had a commitment to the prevention of blindness, community eye health and teamwork based on operational research to use material and human resources efficiently, becoming a national reference center.
During the event, there was also a tribute to doctor Newton Kara José, creator of the Cataract Project. The team of employees, students and teachers of the Ophthalmology discipline at FCM and HC highlighted the work done by the retired professor in the Project which, since its establishment in 1986, has already made it possible to carry out more than 10 million consultations and around 2 million cataract surgeries in Campinas and municipalities in the Metropolitan Region.
Read article in full published on the Faculty of Medical Sciences website.
Check out more details about the Award in the article HC Ophthalmology wins the world's biggest award for preventing blindness
