Daniela Ferrara, MD, PhD, recently took over as Topcon Healthcare’s Chief Medical Officer. In her new role, Dr. Ferrara will lead the company’s clinical and medical strategy, guiding the development and implementation of solutions that improve the clinical outcomes of patients.
AI in Eye Care interviewed Dr. Ferrara to learn about her goals in her new role, the future of AI in eye care, where she thinks advanced technology will take the industry and more. Read the full Q&A here:
AI in Eye Care: What are you most excited about in your new role as Chief Medical Officer at Topcon?
Dr. Ferrara: I am humbled by the opportunity to lead such a brilliant team of scientists at Topcon Healthcare, and to partner with some of the leading groups driving AI for ophthalmology and retina through our Healthcare from the Eye initiative. I’m excited about the potential to improve the outcomes of patients in clinical practice or clinical trials through AI-powered retinal imaging analysis. The retina field has been leveraging AI-powered approaches in both settings, leading to new scientific insights for some of the main causes of blindness worldwide.
In the Topcon Healthcare ecosystem, we can bring together large retinal imaging datasets and some of the best performing algorithms available across the market, creating a unique opportunity to improve patient management or to unlock new scientific discoveries. More recently, AI-based approaches are also enabling a new scientific field often referred to as “oculomics,” which explores the use of ocular imaging for clinical predictions of systemic diseases such as cardiovascular, metabolic, or neurologic disorders that are among the main causes of morbidity and mortality globally.
AI in Eye Care: What are your top goals for the next few years?
Dr. Ferrara: Our goal is to leverage retinal imaging and AI to help clinicians detect and monitor ocular or systemic diseases. In addition, we strive to improve outcomes for patients. We are achieving that by empowering patients and health care professionals with precise, timely and actionable clinical insights from ocular imaging.
In the next few years, our team will continue to focus on three pillars anchored on retinal imaging: innovative device technologies to collect relevant clinical data, powerful AI-based solutions for precise data analysis and large curated datasets to further scientific advances. We will also continue to partner with some of the main stakeholders in the field — from clinical care, academia, industry, regulatory authorities, payers and beyond — as health care is being completely transformed.
AI in Eye Care: How do you think eye care is changing with AI innovations?
Dr. Ferrara: AI-powered solutions are already changing eye care and clinical research by improving clinical imaging analysis. For example, “segmentation algorithms” identify and measure imaging biomarkers of clinical relevance. This is similar to what an expert could do if they had enough time and training. It also offers reliability and efficiency for health care professionals and researchers.
Other types of algorithms, “future prediction algorithms,” aim to predict the health status in a future point in time, with or without treatment. These algorithms are in earlier stages of development and adoption, given the additional scientific complexity. However, they are becoming available and will enable new clinical paradigms, in ophthalmology and other fields of medicine.
AI in Eye Care: What can ECPs do now to prepare for the industry changes related to AI innovations?
Dr. Ferrara: The integration of AI-powered solutions across critical activities is ubiquitous in all sectors of society. Now, it is changing health care as well. ECPs must understand the implications of adopting these innovations in their core activities and to the field at large.
Currently, the health care system is fundamentally fragmented and siloed. For patients and ECPs, that means they may not have timely or transparent access to clinical information that is relevant for care. The implementation of solutions based on AI include algorithms as the core engine of innovation. However, they also require improvements in the overall clinical data management, from data collection to storage and analysis. Individuals and organizations can prepare by getting involved and truly leveraging these powerful technologies in service of their patients.
AI in Eye Care: What do you anticipate will be the biggest challenges to the industry with AI innovations?
Dr. Ferrara: The health care system at-large has complex fundamental challenges. AI has the potential to increase precision and efficiency of clinically relevant information. This will ultimately empower patients and ECPs to make more informed decisions. The core AI-powered solutions are just the tip of the iceberg. For example, as we increase implementation of these powerful tools, one of the biggest challenges is managing clinical data in a safe digital environment. Another challenge for the industry is the seamless integration of these technologies into the burdensome workflow in health care. A clear path to access these technologies may also be a challenge.
Topcon Healthcare is determined to identify and implement solutions to these challenges through our own innovation and partnership efforts. We’ve also shown our support for the Alliance for Healthcare from the Eye, a coalition of health care systems, clinicians, industry innovators, life science companies, non-profits, policy makers and payors dedicated to advancing oculomics.
AI in Eye Care: What do you anticipate will be the biggest improvements to the industry with AI innovations?
Dr. Ferrara: From my perspective, as a clinician and a researcher, the biggest improvements that AI can bring to the health care industry are related to better clinical outcomes for patients. As a field, we have the opportunity to leverage AI-powered solutions to deeply benefit clinical care. In addition, this technology can benefit other biosciences, such as drug development. This is because AI enables efficient and reliable analysis of very complex clinical data at scale. This includes a safe and transparent exchange of relevant clinical information.
In the point-of-care setting, the patient journey will improve because ECPs will make more informed decisions. This will lead to earlier diagnosis, more personalized treatment decisions and better utilization of resources across the health care system. In the drug development setting, timelines and costs can be reduced. This also means the probability of technical success in developing molecules from the bench to the bedside will increase.
AI in Eye Care: Are there any AI-related myths you want to debunk for ECPs?
Dr. Ferrara: One of the most unsettling myths that I often hear is the fear that AI will negatively impact societal workforces. AI has been considered by many to be the central driving force of the Fourth Industrial Revolution. This is thought to be a broad societal transformation that merges digital, physical and biological systems.
Although it’s clear that AI is changing the profile of many jobs, especially those related to repetitive tasks, these changes are mostly related to the efficiency and reliability that automation often provides. In health care, the benefits are broadly similar. AI-based solutions are fundamentally intended to empower patients and experts to make more informed decisions that improve clinical care.
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