Improving Access to Eye Care in Glaucoma Patients

Glaucoma

Glaucoma, Eye Care, Community Outreach

1. To design and develop a prospective, randomized pilot study utilizing information from electronic medical records to address follow-up adherence and reduce the gap between recommended and actual follow-up adherence in patients with glaucoma. 2. To evaluate the impact of a telephone-based intervention on follow-up adherence in patients with glaucoma using a randomly assigned comparison with usual care.

The Wills Eye Health System (WEHS) proposes to conduct a pilot study to evaluate the feasibility and effectiveness of a telephone-based intervention to improve rates of follow-up exams in patients with glaucoma. The prospective, randomized, controlled trial entitled Improving Access to Eye Care in Patients with Glaucoma will utilize cohort data from 2013 electronic medical record information to reduce the gap between recommended and actual follow-up utilization of eye care services in glaucoma patients. Patients with glaucoma will be recruited from the Wills Eye Glaucoma clinic who were seen between 3/1/13 and 10/31/13. A recall list will be generated for patients who have scheduled follow-up appointments from 9/1/13 to 11/30/13. These patients will be randomly assigned to the Usual Care group or Intervention group. The primary outcome will be successful attendance at a follow-up appointment within an appropriate time frame. This intervention is based on a CDC funded project at Wills to improve access to eye care in patients with diabetes. Thus, this pilot study will test the efficacy of a telephone-based intervention to improve follow-up adherence in patients with glaucoma by improving access to eye care.

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