An estimated 62 million adults in the U.S are at high risk for serious vision loss which means that the economic impact of major vision problems among Americans older that 40 is expected to be more than $145 billion.
CDC https://www.cdc.gov has developed the nation’s first “Vision and Eye Health Surveillance System” (VEHSS) which operates in collaboration with the National Opinion Research Center (NORC). The system integrates data from national surveys, longitudinal population-based studies, registry data, EMRs, and administrative claims records to estimate how many eye conditions are present.
The VEHSS is designed to help healthcare professionals, researchers, policymakers, and state health departments understand the scope of vision loss, eye disorders, and eye care services in the U.S. The VEHSS site has information on specific eye conditions and diseases at the state and the national level.
EMR databases and EMR registries represent an emerging data source with the potential to measure health outcomes at a higher level of detail than is available in claims data. The VEHSS team reviewed potential EMR databases for inclusion in the surveillance system. The team then selected the IRIS® Registry as the only data source currently to be included in the VEHSS.
The VEHSS can be used to:
- Create case definitions to analyze data consistently across sources
- Analyze the data for the prevalence of eye disorders and disabilities, use of eye health services, and health disparities in visual health treatments and outcomes.
- Investigate methods to leverage multiple existing data sources to create new estimates of the prevalence of vision loss and eye disease
Go to https://www.cdc.gov/visionhealth/vehss/index.html for more information on VEHSS.