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A comparative study of glaucoma referrals in Southeast Scotland: effect of the new general ophthalmic service contract, Eyecare integration pilot programme and NICE guidelines

Overview of attention for article published in BMC Ophthalmology, December 2015
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Title
A comparative study of glaucoma referrals in Southeast Scotland: effect of the new general ophthalmic service contract, Eyecare integration pilot programme and NICE guidelines
Published in
BMC Ophthalmology, December 2015
DOI 10.1186/s12886-015-0161-5
Pubmed ID
Authors

Karim El-Assal, Jonathan Foulds, Stuart Dobson, Roshini Sanders

Abstract

Glaucoma is a progressive disease responsible for the second commonest cause of blindness in the UK. Identifying appropriate patients for hospital care remains an ongoing challenge for all UK hospital glaucoma services. The purpose of our study is to evaluate accuracy and outcome of community optometry referrals before and after implementation of the new general ophthalmic service contract in 2006, the Eyecare Integration Programme pilot in 2008 and the effect of NICE guidelines in glaucoma in 2009, over a 12-year period A retrospective case analysis using a glaucoma electronic patient record was performed encompassing two six-year periods, 2000-2006 (Group A), and 2007-2012 (Group B). One thousand six hundred twenty-two new patients' records were analysed. Waiting times reduced from 12.3 to 9.4 weeks. Significantly more patients kept first appointment (p = 0.0002) in group B. Glaucoma symptoms were significantly more in group A (p <0.0001) and only three patients lost Snellen' visual acuity before appointment in group B compared to 12 in group A. Documentation of intraocular pressure was made in 74.1 % of Group A and 75.9 % of Group B, optic disc appearance in 85.4 % of Group A, and 93 % of Group B and visual fields in 84.4 % of Group A and 81.3 % of Group B. Significantly less normal (p < 0,0001), more glaucoma suspects (p < 0.0001), more open angle glaucoma (p = 0.0006) and fewer other conditions (p = 0.0024) were present in group B, compared to group A. Patients were referred earlier with shorter waiting times for hospital appointments with the new Scottish general ophthalmic service and Eyecare Integration Programme. Additionally there were fewer false positive referrals with more diagnosis of glaucomatous disease. We discuss the benefits of these national screening and referral pathways together with their limitations and further refinements.

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Mendeley readers

Mendeley readers

The data shown below were compiled from readership statistics for 44 Mendeley readers of this research output. Click here to see the associated Mendeley record.

Geographical breakdown

Country Count As %
Unknown 44 100%

Demographic breakdown

Readers by professional status Count As %
Student > Master 9 20%
Researcher 7 16%
Student > Bachelor 5 11%
Student > Doctoral Student 4 9%
Student > Postgraduate 2 5%
Other 4 9%
Unknown 13 30%
Readers by discipline Count As %
Medicine and Dentistry 15 34%
Nursing and Health Professions 3 7%
Business, Management and Accounting 2 5%
Social Sciences 2 5%
Linguistics 1 2%
Other 5 11%
Unknown 16 36%
Attention Score in Context

Attention Score in Context

This research output has an Altmetric Attention Score of 1. This is our high-level measure of the quality and quantity of online attention that it has received. This Attention Score, as well as the ranking and number of research outputs shown below, was calculated when the research output was last mentioned on 09 December 2015.
All research outputs
#21,264,673
of 23,881,329 outputs
Outputs from BMC Ophthalmology
#2,278
of 2,554 outputs
Outputs of similar age
#334,298
of 393,554 outputs
Outputs of similar age from BMC Ophthalmology
#20
of 30 outputs
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