Verily, the life sciences research arm of Alphabet, and Google, the original part of the now giant company, are launching in India a screening program to identify people with diabetic retinopathy (DR) and diabetic macular edema (DME). The program relies on an automated machine learning algorithm, developed over the past few years by Verily and that just receive the European CE mark, that doesn’t require an ophthalmologist to interpret the results. As a matter of fact, according to the company, the algorithm is at least as good as general ophthalmologists and retinal specialists at diagnosing DR and DME. The new screening program is being initiated at the Aravind Eye Hospital in Madurai, India.

It is hoped that this development will allow Verily and Google to verify that their offering can be used effectively and consistently to perform screenings on large groups of people, hopefully leading to more people being able to take advantage of it.

Previously from Google AI Blog: Deep Learning for Detection of Diabetic Eye Disease…