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Educate families on importance of, accessibility to children’s eye care
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In a recent venturebeat.com interview, former Apple Chief Executive Officer John Sculley quipped: “It’s becoming clear to a lot of people that health care won’t be solved in Washington; it will be solved in the home.” Of course, Sculley’s comments relate to his interest – philosophically and financially – in the juggernaut MDLive.com. MDLive.com is among a number of upstarts playing in the rapidly evolving telemedicine space.
Like Sculley, I, too, feel telemedicine will play an increasingly important role in how health care is delivered as we go forward. With secure online video conferencing, patients will be able to “connect” with their health care provider in a timely and efficient manner. If their needs can be addressed via video conferencing, telemedicine will save patients from unnecessary office visits, minimize congestion and delays in our offices and actually compensate health care providers for non-office based visits. Imagine that.
For me, Sculley’s comment actually resonated on a completely different level. For those who regularly read my Primary Care Optometry News editorials, you know exactly how I feel about health care reform. If we are ever to improve health care efficiencies and costs in this country, it is going to require every stakeholder’s effort – and that includes our patients.
To that end, I am constantly preaching education, as this is the only way in which our patients will be equipped to make solid choices concerning diet, lifestyle, living with medical conditions and treatment decisions. As Sculley aptly points out, this has to start at home.
As primary eye care providers our role in patient education is huge. We educate during exams, through email newsletters and via social media. Among the messages we deliver, arguably none is more important than that of children’s eye and vision care. It is exactly why the American Optometric Association developed our InfantSee program several years ago … and why an annual comprehensive eye examination for children up to 18 years of age is now one of the Affordable Care Act’s 10 essential benefits. Early eye and vision care is so critical to the development, learning, maturation and lifetime success of our children. It is that simple.
So, what should we do? First, reach out to each and every patient family to be sure they understand the importance of and accessibility to children’s eye care. Second, take a few minutes to read our feature article, “Make your exams child-friendly with minor changes in tools, techniques,” which starts on page 1. It will provide you with great tips and clinical pearls for optimizing infant and children eye examinations. After all, if it all starts at home, we need to be there.