Intraoperative Optical Coherence Tomography is a novel and digital imaging technique now widely used, at least in university hospitals, that enables imaging using OCT during ophthalmic surgery. While this technology was previously applied either hand-held, or as a microscope-integrated form, the technology is now also available in a femtosecond laser.

Myopia is on the rise in children and adults worldwide. This is probably favored by our dominating close-up and screen work, but also by evolutionary unaccustomed environmental stimuli, such as the predominant stay indoors. Studies provide controversial data here. As one of the first German start-ups from the field of ophthalmology, Dopavision has declared war on the myopic pandemic with an interesting treatment approach. In the following, we talk to Stefan Zundel, Co-Founder and Managing Director of Dopavision.

As referral hospitals, university hospitals mostly act as links between outpatient and clinical patient care. This implies that they have a large volume of patient contacts. In this context, they are regarded as competence centers where particularly challenging clinical pictures are treated. Due to the large number of external referring physicians, optimal communication between university hospitals, patients and referring physicians is also necessary. In addition, university hospitals still have to fulfill a teaching and research mandate, which presents them with major challenges. Lea Holtrup and Nicole Eter, MD, PhD, describe how the digital transformation of ophthalmology can help in an overview article on digitization projects at Münster University Eye Hospital.

Podcasts have enjoyed great success in many areas for a long time. They are also gaining ground in medicine. While they have so far mostly been addressed to patients, there are now also the first high-quality podcasts from the field of ophthalmology. In this interview, we talk to Robert Wenk, Marketing Manager at Bausch und Lomb, about the production of the Blickwinkel podcast.

The analysis of large amounts of data to optimize clinical processes is a great challenge, but essential to save costs and to reduce the length of stay and waiting time of patients. However, there is often the problem that the optimization of "patient paths" is based on only a non-representative sample and thus does not reflect reality. Process mining describes a new method of process optimization and has already arrived in industry. To what extent it also has potential in medicine and especially in ophthalmology, we discuss here with Mr. Endres from the company Celonis.

In this article we talk to Prof. Claus Cursiefen, Director of the Center for Ophthalmology about the possibilities of YouTube and video education in ophthalmology. We also ask him questions about new technologies such as artificial intelligence, especially in ophthalmic imaging, and generally what ophthalmology of the future will look like.