Establishing a New Eye Clinic at the University Campus

Dr. Juan Ding, OD, PhD led a project to establish and improve a novel optometry clinic at the Ambulatory Care Center (ACC) building of the UMass campus. She worked on this project as part of the Junior Faculty Development Program (JFDP) at UMass Chan Medical School, mentored by Dr. Sheri Keitz. Manisha Anand, a certified ophthalmic assistant at the Eye Center, helped Dr. Ding on this project as part of earning her Green Belt.

In a series of Kaizen (=rapid improvement) events facilitated by CITC specialist, Nick Comeau, stakeholders gradually incepted and made continuous improvements to the novel eye care model. The idea at the inception was to be able to provide immediate eye care to diabetic patients, who are seen at the Diabetes Center of Excellence at the ACC building. “This clinic has expanded in scope, and allows us to see not only diabetic but any patient for routine eye exams, including children from ages 6 months and up,” said Dr. Justine Grier, who has also joined the team.

Over the past year, patient volume has steadily increased from close to no patients to more than 300 patients seen every month. Ambulatory services representative, Adam Champagne (ASR), can boast high access to care reflected by 88% patients seen within 14 days and a five day a week open access walk-in clinic, where patients can be seen without prior appointment.

The ACC Eye Center provides convenient and accessible eye care to patients at the University Campus, including students, faculty, and employees of the medical school and the medical center. “This new clinic significantly improved the compliance of diabetic patients with their annual eye exams. Patients are highly satisfied with the clinic; in a recent survey of 100 patients, 100% of them said they would recommend it to their family or friends” said Dr. Ding. The preliminary data obtained from this project has been accepted for presentation at the 2019 Optometry’s meeting of the American Optometric Association.