International Eye Foundation

Eye hospital leadership, management, and sustainability program:ief's sightreach management program combines state-of-the-art clinical Eye care with leadership and management practices to create a socialentrepreneurial approach to Eye care delivery. Ief assists Eye hospitals in the private, social, and public sectors to design and implement strategies that improve availability, access, efficiency, quality of care, increase revenue and the capacity to grow their services. Since 1999, ief's partnership network has grown to over 71 Eye hospitals and clinics in 23 countries. Ief and our partners have increased access to high-volume, low-cost services, examined more than 8.5 million persons, performed (continued on schedule o, page 41)over 500 thousand cataract surgeries, and served all income groups, including the poorest. A. Strengthening primary Eye care services in india - march 2021 to february 2023.the alcon Foundation awarded a grant in the amount of $300,000 (2021-2023) to support collaboration between the ief and the susrut Eye Foundation & research center, the siliguri hospital, rotary Eye hospital, udhampur, bansara hospital, and other subsidiaries and vision centers in the north and the north-east region of india. This program supported hospital leadership at the four hospitals to adapt to the challenges of the covid-19 pandemic and maintain patient service delivery. The key objectives were expanding mentoring and training using virtual mixed-use learning modules developed in 2020-2021. The program modified the training modules for online training due to restrictions limiting in-person gatherings imposed by the national emergency lockdown. The training offered was a three-month certificate course for ophthalmic technicians (ot) and quality auditors (qa). Training included practical team-based practice in the operating room. In addition, the program conducted webinars on the foreign contribution regulation act, equipment maintenance, fundraising, and clinical and non-clinical quality.the program also supported the installation and training of a management information system, supported covid-19 recovery planning and consultations by telemedicine, expanded the number of vision centers and community health worker door-to-door screening, and conducted a partner coalition meeting to share program experience. B. Strengthening primary Eye care services in india - march 2023 to february 2025.the alcon Foundation awarded a grant in the amount of $375,000 to expand collaboration between the ief and the susrut Eye Foundation & research center, the siliguri hospital, rotary Eye hospital, udhampur, and bansara hospital, other subsidiaries and vision centers in the north and three additional hospitals, lv prasad Eye institute, aravind Eye hospital, and dr. shroff's charity Eye hospital. This program covers three key areas: enabling vision centers to use advanced diagnostic equipment, creating standardized indicators and a baseline to measure the effectiveness of vision center services, and enabling susrut hospital as a resource center in the region to continue certificate courses and training. Objective 1) - to enhance 20 vision centers to bring sub-specialty care to primary Eye care, bridging the geographical distance between primary and higher levels by leveraging technology. Each partner hospital is installing in one of their vision centers advanced fundus cameras with artificial intelligence capacity and virtual reality perimeters (virtual reality headsets) to aid ophthalmic technicians in identifying diabetic retinopathy and early glaucoma suspects for referral to their base hospitals. A research component is under development to validate the capability of the fundus imaging ai camera and the virtual reality headset to identify, refer, and improve follow-up care.objective 2) - strengthen monitoring, evaluation, and learning on the effectiveness of vision centers by establishing standardized indicators, monitoring systems, and a collaborative learning agenda. This activity supports a working group of the seven hospital partners to plan, evaluate, and standardize the existing data collection systems to assess the effectiveness of screening and referral of patients for treatment of diabetic retinopathy and glaucoma from the vision centers to the secondary and tertiary hospitals.objective 3) - establish susrut hospital's leadership role as a center for certification of hospitals to meet the requirements of the national accreditation board for hospitals and health care providers (nabh). This intervention is training a core group of susrut hospital's professionals to complete certification requirements that establish the hospital as a recognized center to facilitate other regional hospitals to navigate and complete the certification processes, increasing the number of nabh-certified hospitals eligible to receive national and other insurance remuneration.

Public health initiatives - onchocerciasis:ief pioneered the community-based mectizan distribution program to control onchocerciasis (river blindness) in cameroon starting in 1997. Ief supported community-based mectizan distribution with the provincial governments of adamaoua and south provinces and the national onchocerciasis task force upon completing its grant obligations in september 2022. Since 1997, ief directly facilitated treatment for 17.7 million persons with donations of mectizan tablets from merck and company, inc. In fy 2023, ief continued (continued on schedule o, page 45)assisting the ministry of health to administer funding for an epidemiological study to determine the impact of mectizan distribution on eliminating onchocerciasis financed by the organization de coordination pour la lutte contre les endmies en afrique centrale (oceac) over three years. From 2022-2023, the centre de recherche sur les filarioses et autres maladies tropicales (crfilmt) conducted a serology survey using ov16_oncvo elisa kits. The results reported in fy 2023 indicate a reduction in the seroprevalence of onchocerciasis to 1% in adamaoua province - a remarkable achievement.

Child blindness program - 2018-2023:the united states agency for International development funds the child blindness program, supporting expanding access to quality Eye health services for vulnerable children who are visually impaired or at risk of blindness. The program supports non-governmental Eye organizations and Eye hospitals in developing nations to increase the number of children provided with high-quality care and advance global knowledge, best practices, and innovative approaches for pediatric Eye health programs through a worldwide competitive grants program. Usaid awarded a contract to (continued on schedule o, page 43) integrative sciences, llc (intsci) to prime usaid's $11.4 million grants-under-contract program (2018-2023) with a sub-contract to International Eye Foundation's technical advisory group (tag) in the amount of $1,641,945 (amended) to provide technical support to grant awards over five years. In fy2023, the tag was supporting 58 grants to 31 organizations in 27 countries across southeast asia, africa, europe, latin america, and the caribbean. The ief/tag provides technical assistance to these grantees to build capacity for examining infants in neonatal intensive care units, Eye screening for preschool and school-aged children, refractive error and eyeglasses, medical treatment, surgery, low vision services, and other follow-up care. In addition, the cbp program supports training for pediatric Eye care personnel, diagnostic equipment, and low-vision aids and services for blind and visually impaired children.all programs address cross-cutting strategies to strengthen the continuum of care (identification, screening, referral, treatment, and follow-up pathways); integrate services into government services; promote gender equity; document compliance with treatment and use of eyeglasses; promote evidence-based strategies and preferred practices; and training ophthalmologists, mid-level Eye health personnel, teachers, and community-based health workers. The ief/tag contributes to the child blindness program's monitoring, evaluation, and collaborative learning and adapting agenda. During fy2023, the program had in total screened 3,836,794 children; referred 293,781; provided 173,432 pairs of eyeglasses; treated 270,785 for simple conditions; performed 12,290 surgeries and examinations under anesthesia; strengthened 1,771 service sites and trained 35,313 service providers. Additionally, the cbp core team and the ief/tag conducted 13 site visits to projects in africa, asia, and latin america to monitor and strengthen grantee objectives and conducted a partners meeting with representatives from over 22 organizations in nepal.