Posters

The use of digital media in an eye care office and its role in ensuring compliance with glaucoma and dry eye disease

Poster Details

First Author: J.Parekh USA

Co Author(s):    M. Ajaj   D. Patel   S. Parekh              

Abstract Details

Purpose:

To examine the role of digital media in increasing patients’ knowledge of their conditions and compliance to their medications and treatment regimens.

Setting:

The research was conducted at EyeCare Consultants of New Jersey’s two locations, in Woodland Park and Edison, New Jersey.

Methods:

A survey was conducted through interviews with two ophthalmologists, who each studied their next 100 patients with either glaucoma and/or dry eye disease. During their visits, patients were shown videos from CheckedUp (a digital application [New York, NY] ) pertaining to glaucoma and/or dry eye. Afterwards, a research fellow posed the following question to the patient: “Did the videos help you to better understand the condition(s) affecting your eyes?” Additionally, doctors surveyed patients across multiple visits to observe whether the videos affected the patients’ understanding of their disease and if they impacted their compliance to their treatment regimens.

Results:

The poll results indicated that 94% of patients at the Woodland Park location found the videos to be helpful in their personal understanding of their eye conditions, while 68% of patients at the Edison location answered likewise. Additionally, the doctors observed across multiple visits that patients who had utilized the digital media at the Woodland Park location had a stronger knowledge of their eye conditions than the patients at the Edison location. The doctors also noted that the Woodland Park patients were more likely to abide by their treatment regimens than their Edison counterparts.

Conclusions:

Considering that 81% of patients surveyed found the CheckedUp videos to be helpful in understanding their conditions, it was concluded that digital media can be an effective tool for improving patient education. Moreover, the doctors’ observations indicate that patient education is strongly correlated to compliance, suggesting that digital media improves patient compliance. It should be noted that a large proportion of Edison patients are newly-immigrated Asian Americans, while Woodland Park patients are nearly all fluent in English. As the CheckedUp videos are predominantly only available in English, it is likely that a language barrier caused the 26% disparity between locations.

Financial Disclosure:

None