The group offered conference participants a chance to see telemedicine in action, by providing free eye health screenings to volunteers willing to stare briefly into a digital video camera. Photos taken of their eyes were later reviewed by physicians dozens of miles away, said Steven Stumpf, ABBC director of projects management. Interested passers-by at the ABBC booth were also able to participate in videoconferencing linked to project sites in East Pasadena, downtown LA and South Central LA, where local primary care physicians carried out live consultations over the internet with USC physicians from family medicine to psychiatry. Our goal is to collaborate with regional partners to deploy telemedicine projects to improve healthcare for underserved populations. For the free eye screenings, medical images were uploaded to the ABBC webserver where volunteer eye specialists reviewed the images, making notes on electronic medical record software developed by ABBC director of technology Dave Mann.
Volunteers are able to review their own screening results anonymously online.