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Seva Foundation Sight Programs
Seva established the Center for Innovation in Eye Care to accelerate adaptation and utilization of high-volume service strategies in every region of the world. Led by Seva co-founder and internationally recognized public health eye care expert Dr. Suzanne Gilbert, the Center develops solutions required to reduce global blindness and provide consultation to eye care programs worldwide.
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Worldwide Learning Networks
Through the efforts of the Center for Innovation in Eye Care, selected institutions in every region of the world are becoming hubs for training, mentoring, and improvement among surrounding eye hospitals. This network is known as the Centers for Community Ophthalmology (CCO), and its goal is to build the capacity of at least 100 eye hospitals through this process and to produce an additional one million sight-restoring cataract surgeries annually. Current CCO partners include leading institutions in Egypt, Guatemala, India, Nepal and Tanzania, as well as in Canada, the UK, and the United States.
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CCO partners are working to continually improve their own hospital’s services, while also reaching out to help other hospitals in their region. The aim is to multiply the number of sustainable, community-oriented eye programs throughout every part of the world.
Creating Access to Breakthrough Technology
Geographic and economic gaps contribute to keeping eye care programs in developing countries at a technological disadvantage. The Center for Innovation in Eye Care works to address this situation. Special initiatives are underway to ensure that local programs have ready access to information, materials, and techniques required to reduce avoidable vision problems at the community level.
A great example of this is a new project called i-Connect Learning Resource Centers. There are thousands of articles, training programs, planning tools and other documents that describe effective strategies for reducing blindness, but these resources are rarely accessible to the people who need them most. i-Connect brings together some of the world’s top medical information system professionals, representatives from isolated eye hospital training centers, and search engine giant Google. i-Connect is designed to improve search skills, make more materials available via loan and online, and increase the overall use of knowledge to improve people's vision around the world.
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