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Ophthalmologists open up about patient attitudes, future of clinical care
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With 200,000 ophthalmologists treating 7 billion people on this earth, there is no question around the importance of the field of ophthalmology. Ocular Surgery News partnered with Wills Eye Hospital to understand present-day needs and forthcoming advances from the opinions that matter most: ophthalmologists.
Most patients do not seek preventive eye care treatment and only visit eye care specialists when they have a specific problem, according to the survey, conducted in November.
Half of respondents to the survey, which asked ophthalmologists to answer a variety of questions regarding current and future trends in the ophthalmic field, said patients were somewhat proactive with preventive eye care, while 33.9% said patients were not very proactive. Only 10% of respondents believed their patients to be very proactive in seeking preventive care.
Similarly, one-third of respondents said patients do not put the same emphasis on eye care as they do on other types of health care, such as annual physicals or regular dental visits. Only 7.2% of physicians reported patients coming in without an existing, serious eye problem.
Reputations of care centers and individual physicians both had an impact on referrals, with most survey respondents (53.9%) ranking clinical specialty expertise as the most important factor in where they refer patients. This was followed by successful patient outcomes (16.5%), complexity of the patient’s case (11.9%), a respectful and collaborative approach to patient care (7%), the hospital’s reputation (5.8%), and advanced technologies and access to the hospital, each with 2.5%.
In the next 5 years, 33.6% said they expect the role of genetics in clinical practice will be the biggest change to eye care, followed by therapeutic advances (22.4%), advances in imaging technology (19.5%) and refined treatment for macular degeneration (10%). A small percentage rated the role of robotics in surgery (5%) and the role of artificial intelligence or machine learning (2.9%) as the most important changes to the field in the coming years.
When it comes to telemedicine in ophthalmology, many said they are currently not using it but that it will become increasingly popular in the next few years. Only 3.2% said they very frequently use telemedicine, with 46.6% saying they never use it; however when asked if it will have a larger role in the future, 61.8% agreed.
The full results of the study are available here. - by Rebecca L. Forand