Spotlight ON TECHNOLOGY & TECHNIQUE

Add a New Dimension to Patient Education

By Leslie Goldberg, Associate Editor

The days when a black-and-white photocopied handout or a slick, but slanted, drug company brochure were sufficient for patient education about ocular disease are long gone. Modern practices that have installed the Luma patient education system from Eyemaginations now handle this task with customized tutorials, interactive elements, and animated visuals using 3D modeling.

Luma helps deliver a doctor's message throughout the entire practice, from waiting room to exam lanes to the optical area. It enables doctors to educate, explain conditions and offer solutions, clearly and persuasively.

Physician Feedback
“I have animations running in my waiting room on a large LCD screen TV and PCs in all my exam rooms with touch screen,” says Lawrence Bloom, MD, in private practice in Philadelphia, and a beta tester for Luma. “I will often set up specific animations for patients to watch after I have seen them initially and have put in their dilating drops.”

If Dr. Bloom thinks he knows what a patients problem might be, such as non-proliferative diabetic retinopathy or cataracts, he will then play videos on those topics and have the patient go to the waiting room after the video is finished.

“When the patient returns, I can use the videos in the ‘sketchpad’ mode so that I can ‘write’ on the screen with my finger and offer my own explanation at the speed that is appropriate for the particular situation,” he says.

Dr. Bloom says that the greatest benefit of Luma is the ability to allow patients to visualize the exact problem and help them understand their disease. “It saves me chair time for the explanation while allowing me to reallocate that time to answer their now more educated concerns,” he says. “The patients feel more comfortable with what we are doing and the relatives who may accompany them also get to understand what are trying to accomplish.”

A Luma image used by doctors or support staff when explaining wet AMD to a patient.

Dr. Bloom also has a link to the system's 3D-Office on his Web site so that patients can watch videos in their home and share the information with relatives and friends, accomplishing patient education off-hours and thus minimizing staff time dedicated to it.

Dr. Bloom believes the system was a good investment for his practice. “The company is very responsive to my needs and they are constantly improving the software,” he says. “It's their innovation that will allow my practice to more easily adapt to the ‘best practice’ models that we need to incorporate for the future.”

New Features of Luma
The system's Scheduler tool enables a practice to turn the waiting room into a revenue builder by delivering customized presentations that focus idle patients on profitable products and procedures. Staff members can slot specific topics into a weekly calendar to target certain groups of patients.

Active Canvas technology allows doctors to draw on the animations in real time using a click of the mouse. This draw-over-video technology shows the progression of conditions and pathologies so that patients can understand what can happen if the condition becomes more severe.

Practices with dispensaries can use Luma's Optical Advisor features to convey the benefits of various premium lens options using visual simulations so that patients are better equipped to make the right purchasing decision. OM

For more information on Luma, visit luma.eyemaginations.com or call (877) 321-5481.