Welcome to Real Talk on AI and I care with your host, Dr. Scott Morris. And I'm co host, Dr. Rehan Ahmed.
In each episode, we discuss current news, adding a little AI education, and debate innovative AI tools and topics that will change the industry. Well, welcome to Real Talk. My name is Dr. Rehan Ahmed.
I'm joined by my co host, Dr. Scott Morris. Scott, how are you doing tonight? Good.
Spend an interesting week in terms of lots of different technologies to chat about. Oh, exactly. And this week is the American Academy of Ophthalmology. So I'm sure there will be a lot of interesting and new announcements.
And that's where we get new, another really hot item, hot off the press from today. The news of the week is regarding, and this is a company we've talked about many times, S.S.L.A.L.A.L.L.A.T.A.G.A. It's a bold new move into AI diagnostics. So S.S.L.A.L.A.L.A.T.A.G.A.T.A.G.A.
Everyone, I'm sure, who listens to these podcast notes, this is the global powerhouse behind Ray Van, Veralux, of course, Lenscrafters. It has a big investment for Meta. And for obviously the wearable stuff that we've talked about today announced that they acquired a written AI. This is a Swiss company that is at the forefront of artificial intelligence and retinal imaging.
Now, of course, this is a startup, and S.S.L.A.L.A.L.A.T.A.G.A.G.A.G.A.G.A.G.A. is a massive company. But I think what we should be talking about, what does it mean, quote-unquote, to be an I wear company? And this is really, in my mind, to be seen in the context of its recent acquisitions.
So earlier this year, I mean, they've sort of been on a buying street. They bought Optegra, which we talked about. This was a network of, in Europe, of ophthalmic surgery clinics. In the UK, Poland, Netherlands, when we talk about that, it's kind of like this is an interesting play for traditional, you know, a lens in frame manufacture.
That they're obviously spreading their wings a little bit on the clinical side. And then we also picked up cell view imaging. And that's that Canadian company we talked about that does advanced retinal imaging, wide field views for the diagnostic layer. And now they acquired retina AI.
And so they added the software brain. And this is the AI that can interpret images, biomarkers, disease progression. It does a lot of work with pharmaceutical companies and clinical trials for better subject selection, inclusion criteria. So this is a really interesting and powerful sort of triad.
So you have Optegra, which is a clinic that brings patients, you have cell view that brings imaging hardware. And then you add retina AI that brings AI through the insights. It's kind of like this full stack of health platform. Now just a little bit about retina AI.
They have their retina AI discovery. It's a cloud-based platform for OCTs, fundus photos. They have a big footprint in Europe with CE Mark and FDA clearance on several modules here. And so they have made making a lot of noise.
They raised funding from synoptists, one of Europe's largest ophthalmology networks to deploy the discovery across a lot of clinics. And that's, you know, that's probably what caught a lot of people's attention as a sort of revenue generating technology of where AI is actually bringing in. And I know in the in our fireside chat, we're going to talk a little bit more about vertical integration. But this is, you know, last week we talked about horizon Scott.
And I thought, you know, what's going to be what's going to top that this weekend. And yeah, I think this is a big, this is a big and interesting move. And, you know, it's pretty much every main screen. There's some kind of merger acquisition that kind of reshapes.
So some degree reshapes the whole game, you know, I mean, it's okay. Now you have that company that buys this company. And I think we get later to our fireside, we can talk about some of these vertical integration. It would be really interesting talk.
Yeah, I think talking about the sort of the eye health value chain is going to be really interesting. But in terms of the knowledge by I know you are talking about APIs, which is a super interesting topic that I think we should all know something about. So tell us about APIs. Yeah.
So I mean, I think we hear that term all the time. I doubt there's any reason I heard API, right? Well, what does it actually mean and do you understand it? And so I thought, especially light of what Rand just talked about, we're going to talk about vertical integration.
Maybe it's a good time to explain what API is. So it stands for application programming interface. So application program interface. And think of it as, you know, I almost go in back a few years of digital messengers or more importantly, maybe like a translator that allows different software programs to talk to each other.
And it's kind of that behind the scenes magic that this app now talks to that app, but we come up with some solution, right? Because if you think about it, many technology speak completely different languages. They're all digital, all zeroes and ones. But the way they were, they're speaking completely different languages.
And we need to translate or make sense of everything. So I always kind of think about like this. And I've used this analogy before of like the light switch or the outlet. And I'm going to use that same thing.
So think about your laptop is, you know, it needs power, but you can't just plug directly into a power plant. You know, the wall outlet in your home is kind of that analogy of what an API is. The power plant sends in from a sends electricity goes to a lot of different courses of action in terms of being the downgrade to 110 or 220 or whatever you're working. And that outlet then takes out your CS special shape.
If you're in the US, you know, it's too pro, maybe three pro. If you're in other countries, you need to listen to this. Obviously there's different shapes in terms of how that energy is provided. And, but there's some standards in every country and your laptop, your phone charger, then says, I can plug directly into the electrical grid.
And that's basically your translator, whether he did his language as an outlet, that's your translator to take one form of energy and put it in another form. And so that outlet is basically your common interface or your application interface. And you don't need to worry exactly how that electricity works or how it travels through the power lines or how light switch works. None of us really worry about that.
We just need to know we plug in the outlet and we got power. And that's really kind of what an API does. It says it doesn't matter for the user, the end user, if you're using, you know, one database or a different database or using this program of language or that programming language. It just basically translates that and says, let me make the user have access to it in the way that the user wants to use it.
And so, you know, and these APIs are everywhere. I mean, look at Google maps on your phone or, you know, it's taking some type of API that goes out to the Google servers and says, let's look at that map, let's look at traffic, let's do all this stuff. And then, and then translates it back so we can understand it. Oh, here, I'm this little car going down this road.
And hey, it's red coming up, which means I'm going to have, you know, there's going to be a delay. And so when you log into any website, you know, using your Google account, your Facebook account or whatever account you're using, that's really just an API that's going to translate whatever program it is that you're looking into a way that you can look at it and it kind of verifies and looks at your, you know, and securely verifies your identity and then you don't have to enter in your data in every different spot. And so, you know, you know, you can easily be sharing the same language or using the same power supply. It just makes it easy for us to connect and access pretty much the whole Internet.
So next time you're seeing a bunch of apps working together like, hey, I just feel like I went from one app to another, there was an API, there was a translator happening between those two things. So that's in the I care industry from suppose I had this really cool AI based reception, soft piece of software. And I think the first question with the provider may ask as an op-emologist or that comes to say, hey, do you integrate with my EMR. I'm assuming API is something.
Yeah, I mean, what's it? What's the, what's the, what's the, how does the EMR that uses one type of software platform background database. And then you have this new tool like, let's say your automated receptionist that uses a completely different database tool language. Somebody somewhere or these days now AI is developing the API to connect those two pieces together.
So when we as users get it looks like it's all synced together and integrated and going together. Now, not all APIs are perfect. It's like if you have a translator and they kind of understand Spanish, but they understand Castilian Spanish and not what are you can Spanish. And I think that's the same thing.
But there's a few little hiccups there, right. And so I think that right now we're starting to see where as all of these different technologies come out, that's the common question we get, which is why I want to do the knowledge, but is will do you have an API that connects a to be. And the answer pretty much has to be yes. The answers, it doesn't work together.
Oh, interesting. I think this leads really well into our fireside chat because our fireside chat is all about connections. It's kind of like about APIs, but for about companies and how companies are being connected. So this relates to our news of the day, of course, with the S allure, exotic purchase of the AI startup.
And so we're talking about how vertical integration is sort of redefining I care. And this is not a new topic Scott. We've been seeing integration for many years now, both optometrium and ophthalmology. But give us give us the lay of the land here.
40,000 foot view. Yeah, I think you know, I, when we think about merger and acquisition has been going, I mean, it's been going on forever. But, but I think in the last 10 years, we've seen a lot of what we kind of come to term called vertical integration, right. We have that we have lens companies and frame companies that have now acquired or merged or whatever.
I mean, the biggest one is you said earlier today is us little exotic. But there's also lots of vertical integrations are doing of hey, we want to buy practices. We want to buy contact lens companies. We want to buy distributorships.
We want to buy each are we want to buy insurance companies. So we start seeing a from having hundreds of companies to having much, many, many less companies that are very vertically integrated on will pick on. And then we start out with the market. I mean, you know, when I started out there was S all or there's was a exotic and then there were, you know, all these other companies that were laying and now we start seeing they've acquired, you know, they merged.
In one way or another with that they kind of bought in. I met you have that. S. Lawrence started partying with some other buying groups and those types of things that so we start having vertical integration as this store started buying practices.
Those things merged together. You have all these frame lines and now we're getting to consumer electronics and those relationships with meta. So you have one big vertical integration that's a solar exotic on the other hand, you have these other vertical integrations that are like the big one probably in the list is you have the SP, which was an insurance company that started buying or merging together with frames data and then started also merging together with lots of different buying groups. And you also had them merging together to buy it with marshal and now you have a frame line.
And so there becomes another vertical integration. And then we have other vertical integrations happening. You think like top con right so top con and they're buying up everything and putting everything together with harmony and you know we're starting to see very much going from having hundreds of different companies to having large vertically integrated groups. But you know the challenge is kind of like we talked about knowledge by this.
You have to have an API of sorts for all of these different products that all these companies are buying to merge them together. And I think that we're starting to just I still think we're in the infancy of these merger and acquisitions maybe maybe we're up to toddler stage. You know where all these mergers and acquisitions are starting to go well what is our vertical integration. How do we affect the care delivery cycle from point A to point Z, the providers, the resources, the tools, the products, the services.
How do we have vertical integration and how do we connect all those pieces. I think that's you know not to to to underestimate the power of that. But I still think until we can have somebody that's an API that connects all of the different companies. There's still a lot of challenges to go with the vertical integration.
You can even throw in you know another form of vertical integration right on is all of the private equity groups. What it be really done is you've you've vertically integrated lots of different styles and designs of practices. To put them in a single column of you are now you know my eye doctor or you know vision care specialist or whatever you know pick a buying group pick a private equity group. And they're trying to link stuff to their API is let's put everybody in the same EHR.
But there's still problems with does the EHR link to the diagnostic technology each one of them have and I think that's been a major struggle for a lot of the private equity groups is yeah we might be able to slowly convert everybody using the same EHR. But there's 40 different types of topographers and how do they all link together right and so. Regulations an interesting puzzle you know it's been a puzzle piece that not all of them fit together I'm not even using sure they're using the same density of cardboard or the same colors. But the maps slowly but surely starts to come together.
Yeah and you know we've been talking a lot how data is the new oil right that and a lot of the I think potential when you're thinking about the whole is greater than the sum of parts I certainly that's what the ones who are proponents of these types of mergers and these vertical integrations believe and so what's enabling that and I would argue that there's a strong data play in all these. Oh mergers and we you know we talked about it I think from a surgical standpoint all con earlier this year and you know there's there's a back and forth here a little bit but they agreed. While they purchased star surgical and you know they're the ones who make the the I CLs and and really it's a segment of the refractive population that all content have but now they have and they now they control. From a from a patient at any age and this is something I talk with dr.
Prick about from contact lenses to to I CLs to cataract surgery so they have a solution for the vision surgical vision needs of a patient at any time. And they could they know the data for that so they can basically say what would be the I most ideal the best procedure for someone in a certain type of refractive condition and the same way for for a solar and ready and all and their their clinics and they assume the data plays that they're going to have access to all sorts of data that they can then take advantage of to not only enable diagnostics but also lenses and frames. And smart frames and so there's a smart phrase and consumer electronics and yeah I mean and behaviors and then we get a behavior like we talked about a couple weeks ago you're absolutely right I mean I agree with your and it's a data play this is all a data play for any of our audience who's listening we've said this numerous times your data and your ability to access and utilize your data processor data is this brand says the new oil and it is going to be the most important part of your practice and I think that's what this is. I think that's what this power play is for us how do we collect the most amount of data and you know I mean then you get into at some point you know if you get too much vertical integration is too much but not only on data and that's up that's a whole other discussion for another night i'm sure but you know I mean I wonder about monopolistic kind of behavior that's starting to occur and what that looks like we've seen that you know we've seen that with the insurance companies is like hey if you use this lens it's you get reverse this.
If you somebody else's lens you get reverse something different I was like isn't that kind of pretty monopolistic behavior you know how do you get to control the prices just because you control the data they do and so you know I wonder where this will go not you know playing devil's advocate is I think some integration acquisitions good where that fine line is between too much control and not enough control I don't know that answer but that's a good idea. That's a that's a debate for another evening. Certainly right and there are a lot of issues there certainly thinking about what's best for the patient most importantly the provider society in every case is different but you're right it is a can of worms and but really no doubt exciting times Scott and let's see what we talk about next week because when we first started this podcast I thought what are you know news of the week is there going to be something different every and certainly we have definitely found that so a great great real talk Scott and look forward to speaking with everyone next week. You've been listening to real talk an AI and I care your weekly podcast to keep you informed about AI technologies revolutionizing I care.