You are here

Article Text

Article menu

Download PDFPDF

XML
Original article
Acceptability and use of glaucoma virtual clinics in the UK: a national survey of clinical leads
  1. Patrick J G Gunn1,
  2. Joanne R Marks1,
  3. Leon Au1,
  4. Heather Waterman2,
  5. Paul G D Spry3,
  6. Robert A Harper1
  1. 1 Manchester Royal Eye Hospital, Manchester University NHS Foundation Trust, Manchester, UK
  2. 2 School of Healthcare Sciences, Cardiff University, Cardiff, UK
  3. 3 Bristol Eye Hospital, University Hospitals Bristol NHS Foundation Trust, Bristol, UK
  1. Correspondence to Patrick J G Gunn; patrick.gunn{at}cmft.nhs.uk

Abstract

Objective The purpose of this paper is to describe the findings of a national survey that aimed to estimate the proportion of Hospital Eye Service (HES) units using glaucoma virtual clinics, to determine how these services differ and to gauge clinicians’ views and opinions on the safety and acceptability of this model of care compared with usual care.

Methods and analysis This 12-question survey was disseminated nationally to 92 clinical lead consultant ophthalmologists using SurveyMonkey.

Results The response rate was 45.7%. There were 21 out of the total 42 respondents (50.0%) who were based at an NHS Trust where glaucoma virtual clinics were already being used and a further 9 (21.4%) were planning to establish one. Clinical leads largely rated efficiency and patient safety to be at least equivalent to usual care (92.9%) and 81.0% perceived glaucoma virtual clinics to be acceptable to patients. The main reasons for not running glaucoma virtual clinics were insufficient staff (71.4%) and inadequate space (47.6%). The majority of those running virtual clinics used this model of care for ‘lower risk’ patients such as ocular hypertensives (90.5%) and glaucoma suspects.

Conclusion Glaucoma virtual clinics are employed by a large proportion of HES units, with many seeking to develop such services. Clinical leads largely rate efficiency, patient safety and the perception of patient acceptability to be at least equivalent to usual care.

  • glaucoma
  • telemedicine

This is an Open Access article distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/

https://doi.org/10.1136/bmjophth-2017-000127

Statistics from Altmetric.com

    Request Permissions

    If you wish to reuse any or all of this article please use the link below which will take you to the Copyright Clearance Center’s RightsLink service. You will be able to get a quick price and instant permission to reuse the content in many different ways.

    View Full Text

    Footnotes

    • Contributors PJGG is first author, who planned the study, collected the data and prepared this paper. JRM planned the study, collected the data and reviewed this paper. LA reviewed and contributed to the content of this paper. HW reviewed and contributed to the content of this paper. PGDS reviewed and contributed to the content of this paper. RAH planned the study, collected the data, reviewed and contributed to the content of this paper.

    • Funding This study was funded by the International Glaucoma Association.

    • Competing interests PGDS provides independent consultancy service to Newmedica. All other authors have no relevant conflict of interest declarations.

    • Provenance and peer review Not commissioned; externally peer reviewed.