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Tracking cataract surgery outcomes leads to improved performance

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MILAN – Tracking the outcomes of cataract surgery helps individual surgeons and clinics improve their performance, leading to overall better results and greater patient satisfaction, according to a speaker.

“Patient expectations are sky-high nowadays,” Richard S. Davidson, MD, said at the OSN Italy meeting. “We are under a lot of pressure to do more surgery in less time, with decreased reimbursement and a high demand for better outcomes.”

Richard S. Davidson

With this in mind, the University of Colorado Eye Center launched the Cataract Outcome Project. Through data collection and descriptive statistics, the project aims to determine the type, frequency and risk factors of adverse outcomes.

Correlations have already been drawn from the analysis of preoperative, intraoperative and postoperative data in the original cohort of 1,166 patients (1,672 eyes).

“We found a high prevalence of comorbidities such as type 2 (24%) and type 1 (2.7%) diabetes as well as thyroid disease (21%), and were able to draw a correlation between diabetes and increased risk of posterior capsule tear,” Davidson said. “We also discovered that the majority of patients with postoperative IOP spikes had been on tamsulosin.”

Refractive outcomes were “decent, but still not good enough,” Davidson said, with 95% of eyes corrected to within 1 D of the intended target and 70% corrected to within 0.5 D.

These findings led to substantial changes being made at the Davidson’s institution.

“We standardized our preoperative measurements, our intraoperative plan and postoperative data collection as much as possible. We created a form that we use in the OR to document various parameters. We changed the way we do biometry [and] retrained our technicians, so now more than 90% of patients are within 0.5 D of intended target,” Davidson said. – by Michela Cimberle

Reference: Davidson RS. The importance of tracking cataract surgery outcomes. Presented at: OSN Italy; May 26-27, 2017; Milan.

Disclosure: Davidson reports no relevant financial disclosures.