ArticleJournal of optometry
Acute community ophthalmology services provided by independent prescribing optometrists supporting hospital eye services during the COVID-19 outbreak.
Article in Journal of optometry. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 9 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
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Who cites it
9 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
- Global Experiences of Community Responses to COVID-19: A Systematic Literature Review.Frontiers in public health · 2022Pooled it
- The Rise of Independent Prescribing by Optometrists in Wales 2020-2024: Number of Practices, Drugs and Costs.Ophthalmic & physiological optics : the journal of the British College of Ophthalmic Opticians (Optometrists) · 2026Article
- A review of UK primary care pathways for acute ophthalmic conditions.Eye (London, England) · 2025Review
- Pharmaceutical Prescribing Privileges for Optometrists to Combat Childhood Myopia in Singapore: Public Health Policy Review and Analysis.Children (Basel, Switzerland) · 2024Review
- Patricia E. Bath: A Luminary in Ophthalmology.Cureus · 2024Review
- An evaluation of optometric advanced skills within a UK tertiary based setting.Eye (London, England) · 2024Article
- Ocular therapeutics and the profession of optometry in South Africa.African journal of primary health care & family medicine · 2024Article
- Optometry independent prescribing during COVID lockdown in Wales.Ophthalmic & physiological optics : the journal of the British College of Ophthalmic Opticians (Optometrists) · 2022Article
- Ophthalmologic emergency room visits during COVID-19 lockdown-Characterization from Haifa, Israel.PloS one · 2022Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
3 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundSpecialised Independent Prescribing (IP) community optometrists provided acute eye care during the COVID-19 crisis ensuring that over-stretched hospital emergency eye care was supported, therefore local overall urgent eye care provision was not affected. SUBJECTS/
methodsNumber of cases seen by hospital Rapid Access Clinic (RAC) between January 2020 and June 2020 were compared to number of cases seen by IP optometrists in community Acute Primary Care Ophthalmology Service (APCOS) during the same time period. Specifically, comparisons were made between the number of cases seen in RAC and the number of cases seen by APCOS during the period before COVID-19 emergency (January-March 2020) and for a similar timeframe thereafter (April-June 2020). Numbers treated by APCOS alone and those referred to RAC were also determined. The change in case numbers between the different healthcare settings was also studied.
resultsIncrease in cases seen by APCOS between April (n = 391) and June (n = 641). Number of cases seen by RAC declined from 652 in March to 372 in April, increasing to 610 by June. This was still below maximum number of monthly cases seen by RAC pre-lockdown in January (861). Most of the cases seen by APCOS were managed in the community with 4% referred to RAC.
conclusionsOphthalmology services delivered by IP specialised optometrists can safely and efficiently treat and manage the vast majority of urgent cases and mitigate the reduced capacity within hospital emergency eye clinics. Our experience provides insights into care pathways for urgent eye cases in the future.
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