Amidst the global effort to stem the spread of the COVID-19 virus, including Malaysia adopting its own Movement Control Order (MCO), VISTA Eye Specialist is not holding back their effort in its "War against Blindness" campaign. In fact, VISTA is turning to the use of the latest in communication and social digital technology, to escalate the awareness out to more Malaysian homes instead. Previously, VISTA has raised awareness through seminars, road shows and screening events.   

As a result of the MCO, many people are staying at home. However, despite the slowing down of almost everything, eye diseases like most health-related issues are still in existence," explains Mr Lim Boon Siong, CEO of VISTA. 

"Following the success of online classes after school closure and after days of brainstorming, we have decided to use Facebook Live and Zoom Video Webinar to reach out to patients in their homes," explains Mr Bernard Chan, Marketing of VISTA. "People who are staying at home because of MCO now have more time to spend and will seek out topics that they are very keen on."

One such topic is the increase in screen time effect on eyes for kids. "Realising that my own kids' screen time has increased - some of it unavoidable but most of which are very much non-essential, we decided to conduct the 1st Zoom Webinar to share with both kids and parents about how screen time can affect kids' eyesight and what they can do about it, such as the 20-20-20 rule - for every 20 minutes of near work, look at something far (20 feet away) for 20 seconds," explains Mr Chan. 

"We have already seen so many benefits from this innovative initiative such as one can attend the webinar at the comfort of your home, without needing to travel, hence saving valuable time and cost. Besides, the webinar allows the speaker to gather real-time feedback such as questions and polls to allow more customize and effective content delivery," he adds. 

VISTA has received overwhelming response and feedback since it started this digital platform with over 20 events being lined up over the coming weeks in 4 different languages namely English, Bahasa Malaysia, Mandarin and Tamil. There are even requests to do it in Hokkien and Cantonese, and plans are also underway to conduct it in other languages, such as Korean and Japanese for expatriates in Malaysia, and medical tourism. 

"With the success of these events, we are expanding our sharing on more topics, while also inviting industry experts to join in as guest speakers," says Mr Lim. "In fact, VISTA has also started exploring more digitalization including the option of Telemedicine for Ophthalmology i.e. without the need for an inpatient visit. We hope that with these initiatives, we can help to raise awareness about eye health and let Malaysians have one less worry during these times."

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