Sankara Eye Hospital has launched its android based application, ‘Sankara Electronic Remote Vision Information System’ (SERVIS), designed to capture live data from the villages, for controlling blindness. The application has been designed by AES Technologies at GN Mills.

At the function held in the hospital premises in Coimbatore, the Managing Trustee, R.V. Ramani launched the application in the presence of Jomy Lawrence, Manager, Vodafone Business Services, Chennai.

Imtiaz Ahmed, DGM of Community Outreach, said, “SERVIS will make the process of outreach paperless as Sankara’s team of fieldworkers, optometrists, ophthalmologists, and paramedics will use these tabs to record patient-specific data during household surveys and eye camps. It will help provide instant advisories and promote preventive eye care awareness.’

During his special address, Bharath Balasubramaniam, President, Sankara Eye Hospital, said, “Being the first eye care provider in India to have automated hospital-level data through the internet, Sankara decided to harness technology to integrate community-level information as well. The information is geo-tagged and GPS-enabled, in which the gathered data will provide real-time information on blinding disease patterns and eye care utilization. With prompt intervention and planning of programmes, no one needlessly goes blind. Two years of extensive efforts have perfected it to meet the highest expectation of a responsive surveillance and information system.”

SERVIS received the ‘Mobile for Good Awards 2014’ for utilizing technological innovations for driving social change. “Mobile for Good Awards, a flagship initiative of Vodafone India which supports emerging mobile solutions with transformational impact on the society, has reinforced Sankara’s resolve to implement and scale up the activities throughout the entire network across India,” he added.

“The SERVIS application will not only be a unique experiment for eye care but a pioneering one in the space of development sector in India like health, education, and micro finance, when such a technology is used to capture live village-level data across the country.”