RMIT students builds app to detect eye disease

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Tiếng Việt

RMIT students builds app to detect eye disease

The diagnosis and treatment of eye diseases could be made much easier in the future thanks to an app developed by a group of students.

The latest data from the Vietnam National Institute of Ophthalmology shows an estimated two million Vietnamese currently living with blindness or visual impairment. Refractive errors also affect 15-20 per cent of school children in rural areas and 30-40 per cent of those in urban areas.

What if there was a quicker and more affordable way to detect eye disorders? What if patients in even the remotest areas in Vietnam could get their diagnoses at a touch of a button?

These were the questions RMIT University Software Engineering student Duong Phan Quan Vu asked himself four years ago, when he was a still a high school senior in Hue, Thua Thien Hue.

Fast forward to the present, Vu and fellow RMIT student Tran Vu Hoang Viet, together with three friends from the University of Information Technology, have developed a smartphone app to detect and treat eye diseases.

The eye disease detection app features three main functions to detect, research and record eye diseases in patients.

Operating under the name ‘Glixylus’, this group of young tech enthusiasts have entered the app in several IT competitions across the country, and tested it at a number of medical facilities in Hue with promising results.

The app currently offers three key functions: a diagnostic function for doctors and medical students to enter patient symptoms, a medical library that stores information for over 5,000 eye disorders (including causes, recommended treatment and medication), and a medical record storage function to help doctors manage their patient files.

RMIT student Duong Phan Quan Vu (pictured centre) with two fellow Glixylus members from the University of Information Technology, Dinh Hoang Luon (pictured left) and Nguyen Van Phu Nhan (pictured right) at an IT competition in 2019.

“I did a great amount of research and consultation with certified doctors to ensure the app provided reliable advice, while my teammates took on the bulk of the technical development, including coding and user interface design,” Team Leader Vu said.

Vu was, and continues to be responsible for the marketing and promotion of the app, something that he says his time at RMIT University prepared him for.

“RMIT provided me with knowledge of diverse programming languages, which helps with the technical aspect of the app. But more than that, I was able to build up my communication and presentation skills, and in turn, made many new connections,” Vu said.

“Those connections are helpful as we want to introduce the app to more doctors and medical centres, especially those located in the far-flung areas of the country,” he added.

In the future, Vu and his team want to use artificial intelligence to make diagnoses by camera possible. They also aim to add more practical features like appointment scheduling.

“We are constantly improving the app while building our networks in order to seek funding and business partners. It will take a lot of effort to make this a fully functional app with widespread use, but we are passionate about this work,” Vu said.

Story: Ngoc Hoang

Science and technology

09 March 2020