What do you think of a virtual glaucoma clinic?
A study published in the British Journal of Ophthalmology compared the agreement in glaucoma clinical decision making between two groups: face to face consultation vs. virtual consultation. All patients included in the study had open angle glaucoma and both groups of reviewing doctors had the same exam information to review (VA, Tmax, IOP, angle assessment, optic nerve photos, OCT of the NFL etc).
They asked reviewers to indicate the severity of the glaucoma and when the next follow up visit should be.
They asked reviewers to indicate the severity of the glaucoma and when the next follow up visit should be.
What did they find?
The authors found a disagreement between face-to-face and virtual review in 3.4% of patients where the “virtual reviewer failed to predict a need to accelerated follow up”.
The take home:
Although there was a small disagreement between the two groups, the authors state that “given the low rate of adverse misclassification, combined with the slowly progressive nature of most glaucoma, and the fact that patients will all be regularly reassessed, suggests that virtual clinics offer a safe, logistically viable option for selected patients with glaucoma”. (via)
