Exhibits are a routine part of health conventions. But an OAT-sponsored telemedicine demonstration at HRSA’s information booth during a November conference may have actually saved a woman’s eyesight.

At the request of HRSA, OAT – in cooperation with East Carolina University’s Telemedicine Center – set up an exhibit at the American Public Health Association’s annual conference in Washington, D.C., to show the many different applications of health care in telemedicine.

But the demonstration ended up playing a crucial role in alerting attendee Christine Ford to a condition that could have left her permanently blind in her right eye.

"Saving a woman’s eyesight may be all in a day’s work in the telemedicine field," said Dr. Earl Fox, HRSA Administrator. "But it’s nothing short of a miracle for this woman and her family."

Ford, who recently received a clean bill of health from her ophthalmologist, says there’s no doubt in her mind.

"I would probably be blind in my right eye today if I hadn’t gone to that exhibit," she said.

Ford first noticed a problem with her vision at the convention when she looked through a camera and saw what looked like a black curtain over half of the lens. A colleague urged her to stop by the OAT display, where ECU was demonstrating a retinopathy screening program using a mobile digital retina camera. The camera is used in rural areas where eye specialists are hard to come by. Technicians in the rural sites capture images of the eye, which specialists in other areas can later use to detect problems.

The health care technician on duty at the HRSA booth captured images of both of Ford’s eyes and showed them to her on a computer screen.

"In this case, the pictures told the story," Ford said. "He showed me both eyes, and I didn’t need to be a doctor – I saw right away the right eye looked radically different from the left."

She called her ophthalmologist in Dover from the conference and drove straight to his office, where he diagnosed the problem: a detached retina. A friend drove Ford immediately to Salisbury, Md., where a retinal surgeon was waiting to perform emergency surgery in his office.

Ford realized how critical the situation was when her eyesight deteriorated even further during the one-hour drive to the surgeon. "I could see the black curtain coming down," she said. "It was pretty frightening."

Ford’s eyesight was restored in the weeks after the 20-minute outpatient procedure. After recovering, she showed her doctor e-mailed copies of the images taken at the HRSA booth. "He was impressed with the quality of the images, and how clear everything looked," she said.

Two months later, Ford’s vision has been restored, a gift she credits to HRSA’s OAT/ECU exhibit.

"It has been clear from over 41 grants and 350 site we support that telemedicine can make a difference," said Dr. Dena Puskin, OAT’s Director. "But we never expected that a routine demonstration could have such a profound impact on one person’s life."