Accuracy of referral diagnosis to an emergency eye clinic

Accuracy of Referral and Phone-Triage Diagnoses in an Eye Emergency Department

“…Requests for ophthalmologic evaluation for ocular symptoms are customary in medicine. Whether they are outpatient referrals (from optometrists, 1 ophthalmologists, 1 or other physicians 1 , 2 , 3 ), inpatient consultations, 4 or emergency referrals, 1 , 4 it is convention for the requesting health care professional to specify a suspected diagnosis or to ask a clinical question in the request. However, the literature indicates limited reports examining the diagnostic accuracy of referring healthcare providers.…”

Glaucoma Community Care: Does Ongoing Shared Care Work?

“…The short subsequent consultations following initiation of treatment provided the primary mechanism of transitioning patients safely between the two, which was only possible due to the high level of training (including therapeutic endorsement [27]) of the participating optometrists. The importance of additional training in areas of interest has been emphasised previously in Ireland and Canada [28,29]. Allocation decisions were driven by factors described in the peer-reviewed literature including: loss of visual acuity, intraocular pressure exceeding target, signs suspicious of structural or functional progression (such as a new disc haemorrhage, retinal nerve fibre layer defect, change in the disc rim), and/or intolerance to treatment [1,6,11].…”

Topical anaesthetic in the treatment of corneal epithelial defects: What are the risks?

“…a diagnostic accuracy of 39% by emergency physicians and 33% by GPs. 8 In a second study, concordance between non-ophthalmologists and ophthalmologists for acute anterior segment conditions was 54%. 9 Treating the symptom risks masking the disease A woman aged 46 years presented with a painful, red right eye to the RVEEH emergency department.…”