At CES 2021, UnitedHealthcare, a Market Leader in Vision Care and Overall Wellness, was Featured on the Issue of Screen Time and Blue Light Protection.
MINNEAPOLIS, USA // Jan 14, 2021 // At CES 2021, UnitedHealthcare Vision, a leader in vision benefits, was featured for its work to help protect Americans from excessive blue light exposure and efforts to encourage overall well-being.
At CES, John Ryan, CEO of UnitedHealthcare Vision, and Dr. Scott Edmonds, Chief Eye Care Officer at UnitedHealthcare, joined Roshini Rajkumar to discuss a collaboration with Eyesafe. Through the combined efforts, the companies are working to help provide Americans with information & protection related to excessive screen time and blue light exposure, in the process helping to support their eye health.
“During COVID-19, we dug deeper on how we need to develop plans to serve our members. UnitedHealthcare is proud to collaborate with many of the leading consumer electronics brands and tie those relationships together with Eyesafe, helping to create efforts focused on individuals at different times,” remarked Mr. Ryan. “The fact that we can bring these groups together in a healthcare ecosystem is exciting and we plan to continue to advance and add value for years to come.”
“From a plan design perspective, we thought about what we could be doing to further enhance our children’s eye care benefit to help provide young people what they need for vision health,” added Dr. Edmonds. “This issue of blue light has been around for a while. We have seen new evidence that blue light can lead to health issues in experimental models. With all the digital devices in use, we became concerned about the potential health impacts. Now with COVID-19, we have even more of a concern.”
In 2020, UnitedHealthcare launched a vision program to help children across the country reduce their exposure to blue light and support their overall eye health, helping address the unique eye-health challenges young people may face amid COVID-19. The company also announced the upcoming release of education programs on the topic of blue light and screen time safety.
Also, earlier in the year, UnitedHealthcare and Eyesafe co-hosted the Blue Light Summit 2020, which brought together world leaders from consumer electronics and healthcare to discuss the connection between blue light, screen time and eye health. For parents, teachers and school administrators, a separate webinar shared information about ways to help reduce blue light exposure amid the increased prevalence of distance learning due to COVID-19.
The companies also collaborated on the 2020 Screen Time Report, in which the two companies conducted a survey to assess the opinions of employers and eyecare professionals related to the potential health issues associated with excessive screen time and blue light exposure. The report revealed that 94% of eye care providers surveyed are “very concerned” to “somewhat concerned” about the impact of digital device screen time on their patients’ eyes; among employers, more than 77% of respondents are “somewhat” to “very concerned” about the impact of digital device screen time on their employees’ eyes and heath.[1]
Digital eye strain, which is caused by prolonged use of computers, smartphones or tablets, may cause symptoms such as sore, tired, watery or dry eyes, headache, or sore neck, shoulder or back. More than 50% of computer users may experience digital eye strain.[2]
“Digital eye strain, due in part to increased screen time, is becoming a more significant issue for many Americans, including professionals working remotely and students engaged in distance learning,” said Mr. Ryan of UnitedHealthcare Vision. “We are taking a comprehensive approach to help our more than 20 million vision members and Americans nationwide to help reduce their exposure to blue light, enhancing our whole-person approach to health benefits and vision care.”
To help build upon those efforts, Eyesafe is launching a complete line of patented screen filters to reduce blue light on electronic devices, such as laptops and cell phones. Designed with input from doctors, these aftermarket screen filters address the legacy market of laptops, monitors and cell phones that do not have built-in Eyesafe technology. For more information, please visit Eyesafe Filters.
About UnitedHealthcare
UnitedHealthcare is dedicated to helping people live healthier lives and making the health system work better for everyone by simplifying the health care experience, meeting consumer health and wellness needs, and sustaining trusted relationships with care providers. In the United States, UnitedHealthcare offers the full spectrum of health benefit programs for individuals, employers, and Medicare and Medicaid beneficiaries, and contracts directly with more than 1.3 million physicians and care professionals, and 6,500 hospitals and other care facilities nationwide. The company also provides health benefits and delivers care to people through owned and operated health care facilities in South America. UnitedHealthcare is one of the businesses of UnitedHealth Group (NYSE: UNH), a diversified health care company. For more information, visit UnitedHealthcare or follow @UHC on Twitter.
Contact for UnitedHealthcare
Will Shanley
UnitedHealthcare
(714) 204-8005
[email protected]
Contact for Eyesafe
Lisa Faraci
[email protected]
5W Public Relations
+1 212-999-5585
[1] Screen Time 2020 Report survey of 157 eye care professionals and 500 employers, July 2020
[2] BMJ Open Opthalmology, 2018, https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6020759/