Dr. Evans told us that, at the time when he started working with disabled veterans, the only two perimetry devices approved by the Veterans Administration (VA) were the Octopus and the Humphrey HFA. At each stop he made, he would have these devices delivered to him, which presented a few obvious challenges. As he told us, “As you can imagine it was very labor-intensive and of course they very frequently broke. They were not designed to be portable.”

He started talking to the team at Micro Medical Devices about a solution, and he was told about the VF2000, a wearable device that runs a full slate of visual field protocols. Because the VA frequently uses kinetic visual field tests, something he told us wasn’t the norm in private practices, he brought it up to the engineers at Micro Medical and they developed a version of the test in line with the VA’s parameters, which Dr. Evans got approved by the Administration.

Once he started traveling with a VF2000 device, everything changed: “You can just bring the device from place to place with you. I just have a carry-on bag with my equipment in it. I’m in Montana the next two weeks, I was in Idaho last week — it just goes on the plane with me all the time and I’ve never had an issue with it.”

While Dr. Evans first started exploring wearable visual field technology because of his work in the field, he wants to make it clear that it’s just as crucial to his ability to care for his patients in his practice, as well. “Not only did I do the travel job, I also practice three days a week,” he said. “My patients are predominantly (80%) geriatric.”

It’s no secret in the eye care industry that machines like the HFA are not ideal to use when caring for elderly patients or those with disabilities that restrict range of motion. According to Dr. Evans, “I have found that my patients prefer the VF2000 to the Humphrey instrument. Many elderly patients have difficulty positioning themselves in a fixed globe type visual field instrument.”

He went on: “The headset of the VF2000 solves the mobility problem. I have had quite a few patients with advanced field loss or limited mobility that could not do a visual field in my standard (750I) Humphrey unit but could perform a reliable field on the Palm 2000.”

He was also eager to tell us that this increase in accessibility didn’t take anything away from the reliability of results provided by the VF2000, which has been clinically validated to be as accurate as the HFA. Dr. Evans agreed, pulling from his personal experience: “the reliability indices on the VF2000 are almost universally better than the Humphrey’s. False positives and false negatives with fixation loss is universally less on the VF2000 than on my Humphrey 750i.”

With larger manufacturers, the relationship is often purely transactional in nature. Dr. Evans said that what stood out to him about Micro Medical Devices from day one is the personal approach they took with him — they truly wanted to see him succeed. Referring to the speed at which Micro Medical developed a kinetic test protocol on the device, Dr. Evans said that he was truly impressed. “Where in the world would you go to find a company that we can actually say ‘I need this test and you don’t have it in your profile, can you do it for me’ and they do it?”

He continued: “Micro Medical has treated me really well since I started working with them. They’re a well-respected company, and my experience is a perfect example of why.”