ATLANTA—EyeSouth Partners announced it has completed an affiliation with University Retina and Macula Associates. The affiliation represents EyeSouth’s third in the state of Illinois and 34th affiliation overall. EyeSouth is an eyecare-focused management services organization backed by private equity firm Olympus Partners. EyeSouth’s affiliate network consists of 34 practices with over 275 doctors providing medical and surgical eyecare services at over 160 locations including 19 surgery centers throughout Georgia, Texas, Louisiana, Florida, Tennessee, Ohio, Kentucky, Pennsylvania, Alabama, Illinois and North Carolina.

University Retina (URMA) has been serving the Greater Chicago area since 2005, led by the physician team of Dr. Rama Jager, Dr. Harit Bhatt, Dr. Veeral Sheth and Dr. Meena George. URMA provides a suite of services incorporating the latest advancements in retinal, macular and vitreous diseases. URMA also oversees the largest clinical research program in the Midwest and one of the largest clinical research programs in the world for retinal and macular diseases, the announcement said.  
  
“The primary goal at University Retina has always been to deliver exceptional clinical and surgical care for our patients. We are absolutely thrilled with our affiliation with EyeSouth because this will allow us to continue our relentless focus on outstanding clinical care as well as expansion of our clinical research efforts to help shape the future of vitreoretinal care,” said Dr. Jager, founder and managing partner at URMA. 
  
“EyeSouth is committed to affiliating with the highest quality ophthalmology practices and we are thrilled to have the physicians at University Retina join EyeSouth,” said Dr. Eugene Gabianelli, MD, chief medical officer of EyeSouth Partners. “University Retina adds a top tier practice to the EyeSouth network with outstanding medical care and cutting edge clinical research efforts in the ophthalmology field.” 
 
Olympus Partners took a majority stake in EyeSouth in October 2022, as VMAIL reported.