L. V. Prasad Eye Institute

Geography
Location	L V Prasad Marg, Banjara Hills, Hyderabad, Telangana, India
Coordinates	17°25′29″N 78°25′39″E / 17.424643°N 78.427513°E / 17.424643; 78.427513Coordinates: 17°25′29″N 78°25′39″E / 17.424643°N 78.427513°E / 17.424643; 78.427513
Organisation
Hospital type	Specialist
Services
Speciality	Ophthalmology
History
Founded	1987
Links
Website	http://www.lvpei.org
Lists	Hospitals in India

L V Prasad Eye Institute is a comprehensive eye health facility and ocular Tissue Engineering research center, jointly founded by Dr. Gullapalli N Rao and Ramesh Prasad, son of L.V. Prasad in 1987.^[1] with its main campus located in Hyderabad, India. The LVPEI network includes a Centre of Excellence in Hyderabad, 3 tertiary centres in Bhubaneswar, Visakhapatnam and Vijayawada, 11 secondary and 109 primary care centres that cover the remotest rural areas in the state of Andhra Pradesh, India, as well as several City Centres.

History

The LV Prasad Eye Institute (LVPEI) was established in 1987^[2] at Hyderabad as a not-for-profit, non-government, public-spirited, comprehensive eye care institution.^[3] From its very beginning, it set forth as its core values the "Three E's", namely, Equity, Efficiency and Excellence. Equity translates as treating all patients (paying for services or not, rich or poor) with the same high-quality, no-compromise care. Efficiency translates into using the best available tools and technology, translating results of research into clinical practice, and evolving or changing policy as needed. Excellence is an ever-ascending goal that LVPEI attempts to achieve.

LVPEI has six active arms to its areas of operation

Clinical services

LVPEI has served over 17 million,^[4] over 50% of them entirely free of cost, irrespective of the complexity of care needed. The various clinical services offered at LVPEI include cornea & anterior segment, LASIK and refractive laser surgery, cataract surgeries, retina services, uveitis treatment, glaucoma procedures, contact lens services, strabismus (squint), neuro-ophthalmology, ocular-oncology, ophthalmic plastic surgery, aesthetic facial plastic surgery, cosmetic dermatology and others.

Education

The Education department provides training to all cadres of eye care professionals and support staff. Ophthalmologists with postgraduate qualifications are offered Fellowships in Sub-specialties as well as courses to improve their skills and knowledge in specific areas; Optometrists with BSc (Optometry) and D. Opt., are trained likewise. In addition, the organisation offers a 4-year BS (Optometry) course and the degree is offered by BITS Pilani; In addition, the institute provides training to various allied health personnel including vision technicians, ophthalmic assistants, ophthalmic nursing assistants and operation theatre technicians. Till date, LVPEI has trained over 13,250 eye care professionals. The Bausch & Lomb School of Optometry (BLSO) and the Zeiss International Academy for Advanced Ophthalmic Education are integral parts of LVPEI's Education Centre. A comprehensive cooperative agreement of mutual benefit in education and research was recently signed with the University of Rochester Eye Institute (UREI), USA. Other international collaborators include the Case Western Reserve University, University of Miami, the University of Wisconsin, USA, Duke Medical Center, North Carolina, Mayo Clinic, Aston University UK and the University of New South Wales, Sydney in Australia.

Research

All aspects of eye research, including molecular genetics, cell biology and stem cell biology and therapy, microbiology of infections of the eye, clinical research and trials, public health and epidemiology of the prevalence of eye disorders, are conducted by a group of 12 research scientists in active collaboration with over 35 clinicians. Recent additions to the research activities include vision psychophysics, biomechanics of the growing human eye and how the brain and the neural system adapt to changes in it, low vision enhancement devices, and adaptive optics. The Institute has seen the award of 29 PhD degrees, publication of over 1300 peer-reviewed research publications, and competitive research grants from national and international agencies amounting to over Rs. 300 million (Rs 300 million) over the years, 4 Bhatnagar Awards, 2 Ranbaxy Awards, and many national and international fellowships and prizes. Also, it has performed over 1000 limbal stem cell procedures for restoring stable ocular surface and vision to patients with damaged corneal surface. Dr APJ Abdul Kalam (former President of India) launched the LVPEI-MITRA Program to initiate Srujana: Innovation@LVPEI on 25 October 2013 in collaboration with the Camera Culture group (MIT) of the MIT Media Lab and funded through the support of Infotech Enterprises Endowment for Innovation in Eye Care.

Rehabilitation and sight enhancement services

This is an integral part of LVPEI. Technological and physical help is made available to those who need it. Indeed, LVPEI is the lone centre anywhere, where clinical help and rehabilitation^[5] are provided in the same campus. Rehabilitation is a combination of learning daily living and work-related skills, and the use of suitable low vision devices, along with professional counselling.

LVPEI has multiple centres for vision rehabilitation across its campuses:

1. The Meera and L B Deshpande Centre for Sight Enhancement, Hyderabad
2. The Dr P R K Prasad Centre for Rehabilitation of Blind and Visually Impaired, Hyderabad
3. The NTPC Centre for Sight Enhancement, Bhubaneswar
4. Bob Ohlson Centre for Sight Enhancement, Visakhapatnam

These vision rehabilitation centres have collaborative links with international organisations such as the Perkins International, USA, Voice and Vision, Mumbai, India, NIMH-National Institute for the Mentally Handicapped- Secunderabad, India and NIVH- National Institute for the Visually Handicapped-Dehradun, India who are all working for the common cause of avoiding needless blindness in the society. More than 100,000 people have thus far benefitted from the services of these vision rehabilitation centres.

Eye Bank

The Ramayamma International Eye Bank (RIEB) is the largest provider of sight restoring corneas in India and a SightLife Center of Excellence in Eye banking. Since its establishment in 1989, RIEB has greatly increased the collection of transplantable donor corneas and elevated eye banking performance standards in India, and other parts of Asia and the developing world. As a leader in eye banking across Asia, RIEB has contributed significantly to the effective networking and proliferation of eye banks through promotion of community eye banking programs.

RIEB's staff makes use of state-of-the-art equipment and infrastructure and continuous improvement through training to execute all aspects of community eye banking which includes:

1. Recovery, evaluation and preservation of donor tissues
2. Distribution of tissues for corneal transplantation
3. Research in cornea preservation and decontamination techniques
4. Public awareness programs

To complement this effort are the community eye banks at Visakhapatnam (Mohsin Eye Bank) and Bhubaneswar (Drushti daan Eye Bank)

An active eye bank is part of the institute. Corneas are collected from donors and used both in-house and distributed to other centres. The medium used to store corneas is manufactured and sent to other needy banks. LVPEI's eye bank has harvested over 43,000 donor corneas, and transplanted over 22,750 of them to needy patients. It has the distinction of performing the largest number of keratoplasties done by a single centre in the world.

The RIEB set up the Hyderabad Cornea Preservation Medium Centre which uses a McKarey Kauffman (MK) Medium^[6] for preservation and storage of corneas and eye tissue material for up to four days. The MK Medium was specially developed at L V Prasad as an economical and cost-effective product for domestic distribution within India and in developing countries across the world and also to several eye banks within India and 21 others in South East Asia, Europe, and the Middle East.

The RIEB offers certificate courses to different cadres of eye bank personnel. At the RIEB training center, eye bank professionals from India and other countries are educated in the planning of eye banking services, policy making in eye banking and eye banking techniques. The RIEB also conducts the Indian Eye Banking Education Programme(IEBEP) workshop once in 2 years to educate eye bankers in the basics and latest advancements in eye banking. The research wing of the RIEB focuses on research pertaining to donor cornea storage and donor cornea decontamination.

Public health and rural outreach

This activity is spread to the rural parts of the state of AP and its neighbouring areas, to deliver quality eye care at/near the doorstep. It was prompted by the results of the epidemiological survey that LVPEI conducted during 1995–1999 (Andhra Pradesh Eye Disease Study, or APEDS), which revealed that over 75% of the blindness (due to Cataract uncorrected 'power' or refractive error, and infection) is needless – avoidable, treatable and curable. Since over 70% of Indians live in villages, it becomes imperative to have quality eye care available, accessible, affordable and acceptable to them. This is the origin of the five-tier pyramid model of eye care delivery, created by LVPEI, which today serves over 30 million people across all levels of care – from primary to quaternary. Out of the 115 locations that LVPEI currently operates from, 95 of them are primary eye care centres located in remote rural villages.

To summarise, LVPEI's public health and outreach programs are conceptualised as "High quality primary care to a finite population, with permanent infrastructure and well trained human resources, serving marginalized populations in the most underserved areas."

See also

• Genome Valley

References

External links

• Official Website
• L V Prasad - Eye Care Hospital in Hyderabad