PRACTICE MANAGEMENT Help Desk

Helpful Homework

■ Eyemagination's newly launched 3D-Eye Home aims to assist ophthalmologists with the crucial but time-consuming job of patient education. The idea for the tool comes straight from busy practitioners, the company says, and has the potential to increase both sales and compliance. "We would hear practitioners say, ‘I would love to be able to burn a disc and send it home with my patients so they could learn more," Chief Executive Officer Jeff Peres says. "If a patient is thinking of signing up for LASIK but isn't comfortable doing that today and wants to talk with his or her spouse, or if a patient has AMD and it's an older person seeing the doctor with their adult children, what can the doctor send home?"

3D-Eye Home presents the solution in a CD. On the CD jacket, content is divided into four sections: condition overviews, surgical treatments, optical solutions and contact lenses. The CD, however, does not contain any information itself. "It acts as a Web key to our server," explains Peres. "You couldn't find individual doctor's discs on the Web." The patient education information is associated with the individual doctor's practice information, including the physician's name, practice address and directions, Web site address and hours. The disc does not require installation.

The information can also be sent in the form of an email. "So if a patient calls a practice and wants to schedule a preliminary appointment for LASIK, the practice can say, ‘Great, I'll see you on the 9th at 2 p.m. We're also sending you a link in advance, so may I have your e-mail address so that you can review some materials," Peres says.

Once on the server, Eyemaginations offers more than 50 3-dimensional animated topics, including "bladeless" and wavefront LASIK, strabismus, vitreous detachment and floaters, presbyopia, glaucoma and treatments such as selective laser trabeculoplasty, and multifocal and toric IOLs. All of the content is available to the patient.

A 1-year subscription costs $249 and includes unlimited use of the e-mail tool and a starter set of 200 discs. A separate account and discs are required for each location.

The service also requires a high-speed Internet connection. For more information, go to www.3deyehome.com. OM