For our April issue we explored the potential for a truly digital health system to improve the efficiency and outcomes of health delivery.
Imagine a world where, as a practitioner, you can find everything you need to know about a patient’s health history and well-being in one portal. Where, as a patient, you can be in control of your own health information and confident that your practitioners have all the necessary information to optimise your care (without having to repeat your medical history at every consult). The data collected from people right across Australia would inform diagnosis, treatment and funding decisions.
Sound too good to be true? At this stage it is, however we’re getting there and eye care is leading the way. mivision spoke to leaders in the field to get the big picture on digital health, as well as some IT innovators working at the coalface to develop platforms that will feed into a digital health system in the future. It’s a massively interesting topic.
Sick of hearing or reading about bad news? This issue we had some fun, connecting with optometrists to find out who their favourite equipment reps are. What really struck me was how passionate optometrists are about their reps and how much they appreciate the extra steps taken to ensure practices can continue caring for patients, even when technology occasionally lets them down.
Speaking of connecting, optometrists had a long-awaited chance to catch up with colleagues at BlueSky – the first major optometry conference to be held face-to-face since COVID-19 forced everyone and every event online in 2020. BlueSky, in South Australia, is renowned for being quirky yet highly effective in its approach to education and this year was no different. In our conference review we delve into some of the topics covered in what was described as an excellent program. We also talk to Professor Padmaja Sankaridurg and Dr Monica Jong about IMI2 – the much awaited second series of the International Myopia Institute white papers.
Enjoy the issue.
