VEW 2023: How — and how not — to use AI in eye care

At Vision Expo West 2023, Easy Anyama participated in 2 panels regarding artificial intelligence (AI) in eye care. "Vision care in the age of ChatGPT" and "Advances in AI and diagnosis for BIPOC populations," the latter presented in conjunction with the National Optometric Association (NOA). He shared key takeaways with Optometry Times, which includes pitfalls for optometrists to avoid when investigating AI use in their clinics.

Video transcript

Emily Kaiser Maharjan:
Hi everyone, I'm Emily Kaiser Maharjan with Optometry Times. I'm sitting down with Easy Anyama, who is presenting Vision Care in the Age of Chat GPT Advances in AI and Diagnosis for BIPOC Populations, which is presented by the National Optometric Association at Vision Expo West 2023 in Las Vegas. Welcome, Easy. Glad you could join us.

Easy Anyama:
Thank you. It's great to be here.

Kaiser Maharjan:
Yeah, of course. So can you tell us a little bit about vision care in the age of chat GPT?

Anyama:
Yeah, so that's going to be a panel on innovation stage on Thursday, where we're just gonna break down chat CBT, but also the entire world of AI in large language models and some of these tools that we're seeing people use for all of these use cases, and talk about how they can be applied to optometry, practice owner, the industry, and what that means for the future of our profession.

Kaiser Maharjan:
Fantastic. You're also presenting in the Advances in AI and Diagnosis for BICPOC Populations as part of the NOA. Can you tell us more about what topics are going to be discussed?

Anyama:
Yeah. So, that one honestly has some similarities for the first, it's another panel. But in this case, there will be more emphasis on how certain populations have more to think about. There are a lot of interesting, one, applications with AI technology, but also implications because of how some of these models and software systems are made. So it'll be educational [and] useful, for sure. I think that it'll culminate us to something that people can take, and have a good foundational understanding of the entire AI world.

Kaiser Maharjan:
Yeah, absolutely. That's such a hot topic right now. Do you have any key takeaway points that you plan to drive home?

Anyama:

Whether it's patient education, whether it's intake, whether it's how do I think about buying a frame with my insurance. But, translate that in the communication aspect, that'd be the safest bet, even if it's in Spanish. Then the pitfalls to avoid are to becoming too dependent on the technology, and from losing any piece of what being a doctor is to the technology, because that's truly what we're here to do. That's really not wanting to be replaced.

Kaiser Maharjan:
Absolutely. I feel like that nuance is really important to talk about too when talking about AI.

Anyama:
Yeah, I was talking about something I call the technological coin flip, where if we don't educate doctors and optometry about these emerging technologies, they'll be forced to flip a coin between abuse and pure avoidance. Both of those are bad. We don't want to be abusing tech and we don't want to completely [inaudible] it. So it's an interesting thing.

Kaiser Maharjan:
How could practice owners leverage this information to better run their clinic?

Anyama:
Again, there's the communication side. Some of these use cases, full disclosure, I have a startup that's literally building some of these things. So you wouldn't just slap it on Chat GPT or something. However, leveraging your plank, there's a lot of [inaudible] decision support tools that are going to be coming out in the future that would help you kind of weed out the noise that occurs on that side. Also in the practice management side, where I was talking about the data dashboards, doctors don't like dashboards and all the numbers that come with managing a business. So, I can see some of that being kind of streamlined, maybe presented better, allowing doctors have more time to be doctors.

Kaiser Maharjan:
What do you think that the future of AI and eye care is going to look like?

Anyama:
Oh, it's so beautiful to me. I think it'd be awesome. I think that there is so much to an artificial intelligence model or an algorithm that is dependent on the information that you put into it. Optometry is number one, in my opinion, in healthcare. Radiologists might argue, but number one, in my opinion. Collecting and having so much information, we have them all and there on all these islands. I think that this technology will be able to merge them and the insight that comes from that could be pretty groundbreaking.

Kaiser Maharjan:
Absolutely. Is there anything else that you want to add that we haven't touched on?

Anyama:
I would like to add that if you're going to Vision Expo West come check out the panels. There'll be a lot to learn [and] a lot of cool things, hopefully, we'll show. It'll definitely be beneficial.

Kaiser Maharjan:
Sounds great. Well, thank you so much for taking the time to chat today, Easy, and I can't wait to hear more.

Anyama:
Thank you.