Smart ophthalmics: the future in tele-ophthalmology has arrived

Smart Ophthalmics^© extends ophthalmic healthcare to people who operate/live in austere environments (e.g., military, third world, natural disaster), or are geographically dispersed (e.g., rural populations), where time, cost, and the possibility of travel/transportation make access to even adequate medical care difficult, if at all possible. Operators attach optical devices that act as ophthalmic examination extensions to smartphones and run custom apps to perform examinations of specific areas of the eye. The smartphone apps submit over wireless networks the collected examination data to a smart remote expert system, which provides in-depth medical analyses that are sent back in near real-time to the operators for subsequent triage