The Portable Eye Examination Kit: mobile phones can screen for eye disease in low-resource settings

The Portable Eye Examination Kit (Peek) is being tested in field trials in Kenya, Mali, Malawi, Tanzania, Botswana, Madagascar, India, and the United Kingdom, and testing in more countries is planned in the future. Peek is a comprehensive and integrated smartphone-based tool kit that comprises the full set of core tests needed for eye screening, designed to be used by operators with minimal to no training. It is composed of a smartphone app and a low-cost adapter for retinal imaging, both optimized for ease of use, and it allows operators to test for the core vision problems-testing for visual acuity, color, and contrast sensitivity, image grading cataracts-and for photos of the back of the eye to be taken, saved, and sent to experts for diagnosis, follow-up, and arranging treatment. Peek's primary aim is not to enhance or replace existing diagnostics tools. Rather, Peek aims to link patients with eye care providers. Peek is specifically oriented and optimized toward eye screening in the community. With this, it helps to identify, directly in the community, by nonspecialist community workers, the people who need to be seen by an ophthalmologist, increasing access to high-quality eye care.