EVERYONE LOVES a great win-win. As the term implies, both parties gain from a certain situation or arrangement.
Patients and eyecare providers can benefit from several clinical win-win situations. A few are easily recognizable.
Education Patients appreciate the personal time that eyecare providers spend informing them about their specific ocular conditions and how to best treat them. They can use this information to make the best choices so that their vision quality and eye health are maximized.
On the other side, eyecare providers can experience the satisfaction of knowing that their up-to-date knowledge has helped individuals live healthy and productive lives. They may also benefit from a loyal and hopefully healthier patient base — patients who routinely come back for personal and helpful eye care.
Frequent Appointment Reminders Appointment reminders at one week, one day, and an hour before an appointment can mean the difference between a successful or a missed appointment. While frequent reminders can keep the patient aware and on time, they also help to keep the daily schedule on time for other patients, eyecare providers, and staff members. Everyone wins when appointments are on schedule and at a harmonious pace.
Innovative and Improved Specialty Treatments Patients who have high and irregular astigmatism can greatly benefit from improved specialty soft contact lens designs. Currently, there are numerous brands of soft toric lenses available that provide custom or extended ranges of sphere, cylinder, and axis powers. Available brands of specialty soft toric lenses offer correction of±30D sphere power, up to 10D of cylinder power, and axis steps in 1° increments (Gulmiri and Liao, 2023). These specialty soft lenses are available in both hydroxyethyl methacrylate (HEMA) and silicone hydrogel materials.
Extended-range soft toric lenses recently displayed significantly improved visual acuity for individuals who have moderate to high amounts (range 3.0D to 9.5D) of regular, irregular, and keratoconic astigmatism (Harbiyeli et al, 2022). Visual acuity with soft toric lenses was significantly improved when compared to spectacles for all three types of astigmatism and was the most improved for the keratoconus group. This study reported the vision benefit of soft toric lenses with extended power ranges for patients challenged with moderate to high astigmatism and irregular corneas. Importantly, these lenses may serve as a viable option for patients who have mild to moderate keratoconus (Harbiyeli et al, 2022).
Eyecare providers who challenge themselves to learn more and to refine their skill at prescribing specialty soft lenses can enjoy the satisfaction of helping patients achieve improved quality of vision and even quality of life. Specialty soft lenses can serve a patient population niche —those in great need of improved vision and comfort. Hopefully, these patients will be happy to share their win-win experiences with their families and friends.
References
1. Gulmiri A, Liao J. 2023 Contact Lenses & Solutions Summary. Contact Lens Spectrum. 2023 Sep. Available at digital.clspectrum.com/publication/?i=799395. Accessed 2024 June 29.
2. Harbiyeli II, Gul Olke K, Erdem E, Yagmur M. Correction of moderate to high refractive astigmatism with extended range toric soft contact lenses in patients with different patterns of astigmatism. Ophthalmic Physiol Opt. 2022 Jul;42:807-813.
