Johnson & Johnson welcomes new Vision Experience Center to Beijing

United States-headquartered multinational healthcare company Johnson & Johnson established its Johnson & Johnson Vision Experience Center in Beijing as its latest effort in supporting the grass-root level training of ophthalmologists in China.

The center, located on the third floor of the Johnson & Johnson Institute on Jiuxianqiao Road, Chaoyang district, was officially inaugurated in early April. The purpose of the center is to improve accessibility and quality of eye health services focused on patients with eye-related diseases, J&J said.

Designed under the "Light for the Future" concept, the center will take form as a key educational and training base for Johnson & Johnson Surgical Vision, the company's ophthalmologic operation division.

Song Xudong, director of the Cataract department at Beijing Tongren Eye center said: "With the advent of an aging society and a shift in living habits and eye usage, the number of patients suffering from various eye-related health issues in China, such as ametropia, cataracts and dry eyes, is increasing day by day. This marks the country as one of the highest with blind and visually impaired patients in the world."

In exclusion of any overlapping morbidity, data showed that the number of patients with myopia, dry eye and cataracts alone exceeds 1 billion. Despite this, there currently were only 47,000 ophthalmologists in China, less than two ophthalmologists per 50,000 people, he said.

The development of good eye health is an integral part of China's growing national health system, but is faced with growing difficulties requiring urgent strengthening, from the construction of ophthalmic professional teams to the total available amount of quality medical resources, industry experts said.

Wang Liping, Vice-President of Australia & New Zealand (ANZ), China Mainland, Hong Kong SAR, and Taiwan Region, Johnson & Johnson Surgical Vision said: "To train as many eye doctors in a relatively short period of time as possible, most of the training in the center will be free. As one of the leaders in the global eye health industry, Johnson & Johnson Surgical Vision is actively responding to the '14th Five-Year Plan' on eye health, and is contributing its own strengths to the training of domestic ophthalmology professionals."

"We aim to apply and extend Johnson & Johnson's global resources and experience in medical education to ophthalmology, effectively standardize the process of ophthalmology clinical operations, improve the efficiency of ophthalmology services and benefit more ophthalmology professional talents.

"This will help us assist the implementation of China's 'Thousand Counties Project', as well as promote the building of a greater ophthalmology service capacity in China," he added.

zhengyiran@chinadaily.com.cn