• Orphia can call patients to deliver pre-cataract surgery education and discuss IOL options.
• The service has potential for other eye care topics in the future.

Orphia, a voice-based AI agent that can call patients to discuss their upcoming cataract surgery and lens options, will soon be available from Bausch + Lomb, according to a press release.

“Lens selection involves a large amount of information. Using this agentic approach enables the patient to access this information as many times as they need before they sit face-to-face with their surgeon,” Manisha Narasimhan, PhD, president, digital health services, Bausch + Lomb, told Healio. “Having this additional education option will help patients to become better informed and more active in the decision-making process.”

The service involves an AI voice agent that calls patients on the phone for pre-cataract surgery education, including discussion of IOL options.

“Currently these calls are made by a staff member from the doctor’s office, and each call takes 30 to 60 minutes, depending on the patient and the staff member,” Narasimhan said. “Orphia will help ease the administrative burden to the practice.”

The service is “expected to be commercially available later this year,” Narasimhan said.

It currently focuses only on preoperative cataract surgery education but has the potential to “be adapted to any eye care condition,” Narasimhan said. The service’s content is “brand agnostic” and does not depend on the doctor using a certain company’s products, she said.

The AI agent was developed with Hippocratic AI, a provider of AI agents for health care settings.

In the release, Vance Thompson, MD, founder of Vance Thompson Vision, said the tool can take over tasks that previously took “tremendous time.”

“It allows our teams to focus their energy where it creates the greatest value: empathy, trust and personal connection,” he said. “AI can handle many of the routine operational tasks like preop calls. People remain at the heart of care.”