The ViaOpta Simulator app enables healthcare professionals (HCPs) and caregivers to fully understand the key difficulties, problems and needs of an ophthalmic impaired patient, allowing them to empathize with their patient.
Visually / virtually showing, the potential evolution of the illness, so that patients will know what to expect in the future.
It also helps some patients who struggle to describe their disease to easily communicate and visually demonstrate their symptoms and their condition's severity to their doctor.
The ViaOpta Simulator app is an augmented reality application that allows users to quickly select an ophthalmic disease and immediately visualise it on-screen, using live video from the iPad camera. Severity of symptoms can be adjusted by simply sliding right or left on the display.
Medical information regarding the disease can also be accessed.
It has been created in association with 3 key European associations ( European Council of Optometry and Optics, European Men's Health Forum and AMD Alliance International). Along with Novartis medical experts to ensure the different eye pathologies and their respective stages (including pathologies not treated by Lucentis) were covered. As such, a total of 26 images (8 diseases with 3 stages each, and 2 diseases with 1 stage as no evolution expected), have been carefully sourced, selected and in some cases created to build the app.
The app was developed in 6 different languages (Spanish, Turkish, French, Brazilian Portuguese, Russian and English) for a global reach. The device language is set as default.
3,500 downloads have been counted within the 5 first months following the app launch at the 2015 ESCRS congress, which represents 35% market penetration with Ophthalmologists in the app main targeted markets, France, United Kingdom and Spain.
Novartis has received great feedback from healthcare professionals at congresses and through sales reps on the usage of the app and the impact that it has on both the HCP's and patient's experience. HCPs are able to use the App as a visual basis for the conversation and patients have a better understanding and real time idea of what to expect in terms of illness evolution.
This positive feedback has influenced Novartis, to continue with its objectives of offering practically to patients and HCPs to ease patients' lives. Just as it did with the patient's app ViaOpta Daily - it has partnered with the Apple Watch to offer an even greater convenience. They now wish to adapt the ViaOpta Simulator app within this year for Google Cardboard, to have an even stronger experience and increase awareness of the app.