“Keep the journey personalised”

Optometrist and Johnson & Johnson Vision professional affairs consultant, Marie-Therese Hall, and optometrist and professional education and development manager for the UK and Ireland, Sheetal Patel, share advice for locums on their contact lens fitting and handover processes

What is your top contact lens fitting tip for locums?

Marie-Therese Hall (MTH), professional affairs consultant at Johnson & Johnson Vision: There are several stages in a contact lens fitting journey. As a locum optometrist it may be that you only play a small part in a particular patient’s journey, so it is important that you do all that you can to make the patient’s experience seamless.

To allow for consistent care, use the opportunity to get to really get to know your patient. To help it feel personalised for the patient, find out about their lifestyle, their visual needs, and their expectations from contact lens wear. Use your knowledge and experience to recommend the contact lens you feel will most suit their needs, explaining your choice to the patient.

To keep up with developments in contact lens materials, speak to manufacturers, keep an eye on their websites, or look out for any training/educational sessions on offer either online or in-person.

As a locum, not being in the same practice to follow up on and gain feedback from patients that you have fitted can be a challenge in terms of building ongoing confidence. Reflecting on your clinical decisions and practice is a great way to start learning about any clinical judgements that you make. Consider how you can work with the practice to follow-up on patients either directly or by speaking to a fellow clinician to understand the outcome for patients you have fitted with contact lenses.

The online AOP locum logbook, supported by Johnson & Johnson Vision, is a great place to document any clinical patient interactions to allow for follow up and reflective practice.

To allow for consistent care, use the opportunity to get to really get to know your patient… Use your knowledge and experience to recommend the contact lens you feel will most suit their needs, explaining your choice to the patient

What is your top contact lens handover tip for locums?

MTH: Help keep the patient informed, and make their journey feel personalised. To help guide the patient throughout their experience, make sure that you are familiar with the contact lens fitting journey within the practice. As part of your preparation for the day, check what a typical contact lens journey looks like in the practice. For example, find out which contact lenses the practice keeps in stock, or those that you will have to order in. Find out whether you are expected to do the teach, or if this will be delegated to a member of the support team, and ask about any contact lens payment plans, and if so, what they include. Familiarise yourself with any written patient information leaflets that the practice provides, and how the patient can get in touch if they have any questions or concerns during the trial period.

It can be valuable to let the patient know that when they return for follow up, they will see a different practitioner. If possible, let the patient know the practitioner’s name, providing reassurance that they will have information on all that you have discussed today.

To keep the journey personalised, and to help the practitioner who will follow up, make sure that you keep good records explaining your clinical findings and fitting choice, along with any advice or information you have given the patient. This will allow the next practitioner to feel informed, and avoid the patient having to repeat themselves allowing seamless, continuous care.

Help keep the patient informed, and make their journey feel personalised. To help guide the patient throughout their experience, make sure that you are familiar with the contact lens fitting journey within the practice

Why are locums an important group for JJV to support? And how will you continue this support in 2023?

Sheetal Patel, professional education and development manager for the UK and Ireland: We appreciate that locums provide a very important part of the eye care sector. As they are self-employed, they can have greater difficulty accessing up-to-date information on contact lens products, services and education that could be beneficial for patient care. We also recognise that the educational needs of locums are unique and therefore delivering education relevant to them is an important part of how we provide support.

We are very happy to be able to continue to develop our partnership with the AOP in providing tailored support to locums. This partnership continues to evolve each year, allowing us to provide a diverse range of resources, tools, services and education, aiding locums to continue to deliver great patient care.

In partnership with the AOP, we will again be delivering an annual tailored educational programme, as well as providing a printed and online locum supplement (available in OT’s April/May edition) with useful information. There will be two events on offer in 2023 (one virtual and one face-to-face), with some exciting new content. There is also the online AOP locum logbook, available only to locums, through the AOP website. 

As Johnson & Johnson Vision, we will be looking to deliver a targeted communication plan with locums to allow them to stay up to date with the latest contact lens information and education.