YouGov Plc online consumer survey Nov/Dec 2019 in Germany, UK, Spain, Japan, USA. Use proactive contact lens recommendation with the knowledge that wearers gain deep emotional benefits in addition to simple vision correction.ġ. Neither the ECP or patient can predict how contact lenses will make them feel – so the best advice is to routinely discuss contact lenses with all suitable patients, and to offer an easy route to enable them to experience lens wear. Being aware of these reasons for early drop out ensures practices can support patients through the early weeks of wear by putting in place educational materials, follow up phone calls and appointments. To help avoid the natural drop out seen over the first 2-12 months of wear, ECPs should ensure that patients are confident handling their lenses, and find contact lens delivers comfortable, clear vision. It is important to optimize the contact lens wearing experience in new wearers.They are simply used to enhance the spectacle dispensing process. 10,11 The benefits being that lenses can be tried immediately, and the focus is taken away from having to decide if the patient wants to become a contact lens wearer or not. Two separate studies have explored offering contact lenses to help with spectacle frame selection.This also provides an opportunity for the patient to experience how contact lens wear makes them feel. It is helpful to be able to offer a short lens experience on the same day to enable those fears to be overcome. Those new to contact lenses may have concerns about how the lens will feel when worn.Perhaps the best reason of all for ECPs to get more involved: changing people’s lives for the better! Taking a proactive approach with contact lens recommendation not only helps with building the business, but can actually change how a patient feels, impacting confidence and overall quality of life. ECPs are ideally placed to expose many more patients to the advantages of contact lenses. Wearer feedback in this survey refutes this concern, and should give confidence to ECPs that many more people in this age group may benefit from trying contact lenses.Ī simple contact lens experience has the potential to deliver all these benefits to patients. Further, ECPs may be thinking that multifocal contact lenses deliver sub-optimal vision for presbyopes. The visual benefits a patient experiences with contact lenses are likely so much more than simple Snellen acuity: unhindered peripheral vision being just one example. This perception appears to be at odds with the patient experience as reported in this survey. For example on average just 50% of ECPs feel correction with soft toric lenses provides the same visual acuity as a patient’s up to date spectacle prescription. This result may be surprising to some ECPs who, perhaps based on experience with older lens designs, may feel that contact lens visual performance may not always match spectacle acuity. 5 However, that recommendation may be more compelling if it can be made using language that resonates with patients and reflects the deeper benefits they may hope to gain through contact lens wear.Īround 8 in 10 agree they see better in contact lenses than spectacles, and this includes the presbyopic group aged 55 and over.
When this is done the number of new contact lens fits and sales increases.
To overcome this misunderstanding and lost opportunity for contact lens wear, ECPs should routinely discuss the option of contact lenses with suitable patients.
Clinical try of beyond contact lenses professional#
Ultimately, this level of proactive professional advice should extend to the routine recommendation of contact lenses in the majority of patients. In neither of these examples is the patient expected to initiate the conversation. Likewise, in dentistry regular deep cleaning with the dental hygienist is routinely advised. Spectacle dispensing involves the proactive recommendation of features that will be beneficial to patients such as antireflection coatings or individualized varifocal designs. The lack of communication does not follow in other aspects of optometric practice. Health care professionals are expected by their patients to routinely communicate and proactively initiate prescribing therapies, including medical devices, and recommendations for treatment options. 3,4 Anecdotally, current non-lens wearers report: “if my ECP does not mention contact lenses then I assume they are not a suitable option for me.” Conversely, rather than proactively offering to everyone, an ECP may look to the patient to drive the conversation, assuming they will ask for contact lenses if they are interested in trying them. In relation to contact lenses, the gap in communication between the ECP and patient has been highlighted previously.
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