Specsavers continues to progress the optometry agenda in Australia, forging a new path into areas like glaucoma, diabetes and now AMD. And as ANZ director of optometry DR BEN ASHBY outlined in his SCC 2022 address, there is much more on the horizon.
A highlight of the Specsavers Clinical Conference (SCC) is the way in which it acknowledges the macro and micro elements that contribute to the success of its optometry business. Whether it’s the in-roads to now detect 87% of undiagnosed glaucoma in Australia, or the celebration of community optometrists who have detected potentially fatal tumours, SCC never fails to offer a rich program.
There’s also the tantalising glimpse into the rollout of new technology and career pathways, and hints at additional areas of focus: à la myopia management – not to mention the high calibre of CPD content on offer.
Five-year ambitions
Specsavers ANZ director of optometry Dr Ben Ashby kicked off proceedings of the 2022 virtual event (10-11 September), with a live broadcast produced at Specsavers’ support office based in Port Melbourne, Victoria, also known as ‘The G’ (Bunurong Country).
In 2020, Specsavers outlined its five-year ambitions – and SCC 2022 provided the halfway point of this plan.
In his update, Ashby outlined how the company was trending well towards its goal to achieve a 95% detection rate for avoidable blindness by 2025. With initiatives such as training provided by RANZCO fellows into stores and scanning every patient with OCT, he said Specsavers optometrists were now picking up 93% of avoidable blindness in the community.
“This is a genuinely world-leading outcome in eyecare,” he added.
Ashby said Specsavers has other ambitions to support more optometrist partners into its business. Since 2020, there have been 135 new optometry partners in ANZ. And in terms of its goal to be “loved by every customer”, patient feedback from surveys has shown that 98% feel cared for.
“And of course, everything is not possible without our people and our ambition is to be a great place to work for all optometrists, and to support them to have fulfilling careers, and nothing shows this to be more true over the last 2.5 years with 500 graduating optometrists joining us, sharing our vision within our graduate program and beyond to change lives through better sight,” he said.
Ashby said Specsavers also has lofty goals around growth. With there being 10 million people across Australia and New Zealand who can’t access regular eyecare, Specsavers would like to open this up to an additional one million patients per year by 2025. The company has so far achieved this with 170,000 people (17% of the target). The numbers are lower than hoped due to the pandemic and forced shutdown on routine optometry for long periods.
“But in addition to the 170,000 people, there’s half a million patients that dropped out of eyecare during COVID that Specsavers optometrists have cleared the backlog for, so a massive thank you for all the work you’ve done because we all know that regular access to eyecare is what is drives out those avoidable blindness outcomes and help people see better and live better lives,” he said.
“It’s not a job done yet but we are at a very good place at the 2.5-year mark.”
Data deep dive
During the past 12 months, Specsavers cared for 3,892,439 people, issuing and updating more than 2,538,735 prescriptions, with 415,347 of those for contact lenses.
Away from vision care, Specsavers has a well-documented initiative to tackle undetected glaucoma in Australia, which historical data shows is 50% undiagnosed in the community. As Ashby explained, the Specsavers strategy is having a meaningful impact that started with detection of 10% of undiagnosed cases in Australia in 2017 to a remarkable 87% in 2022.
“Through diligently examining every patient’s OCT scan, following up with visual fields, working with Glaucoma Australia and referring them on to ophthalmology, we have now found 150,000 previously undetected glaucoma patients in the community; that is an enormous achievement, one I know other places in the world would love to replicate,” he said.
“And for a condition that, not too long ago, the Blue Mountains Eye Study reported there being 200,000 undiagnosed patients, Specsavers has now uncovered three-quarters of them.”
Ashby also acknowledged the Ashfield store, and optometrist Nada Pistilli, who found Specsavers’ 150,000th glaucoma patient. It was befitting of the store that is picking up glaucoma at the same rate as the community prevalence.
Another store was recognised for the impact it’s having in another disease area – diabetes. Optometrist partner Vincent Marzano, from Specsavers Albury, made the 500,000th patient registration to the KeepSight diabetes eye check reminder program in July, marking a major milestone.
“To think we started this program with Diabetes Australia and the Federal Department of Health in 2019, and have now made 500,000 registrations into the program, and more than half of patients with diabetes are returning to us year-after-year, shows KeepSight is working,” Ashby said.
“We started this program to take on the challenge against the leading cause of blindness in the working age – diabetes. The biggest risk factor for losing sight to diabetes is not being in regular eyecare, and the fact this first-of-a-kind eyecare program in Australia is delivering on outcomes and bringing patients consistently back into eyecare is an amazing achievement.”
Next, Ashby touched on Specsavers’ next major disease focus – AMD. It is running a pilot in 16 stores with the Macular Disease Foundation Australia, aimed at reducing the number of patients with wet AMD who stop receiving anti-VEGF intravitreal injections or attending eye health appointments. He highlighted the “terrifying stat” that around 30% of people drop out from this treatment pathway after one year in Australia, despite its sight-saving ability.
“This program is in its early days but delivering amazing outcomes in terms of protecting people’s sight, and we certainly hope to see this become bigger, at-scale across Australia and into New Zealand in future.”
In other statistics, Specsavers sought feedback from its optometrists and found 86% said it was a great place to work, up 10% on 2021. It’s also set to launch three new career pathways and now employs more than 1,000 optometrists.
Meanwhile, the company’s partnership with The Fred Hollows Foundation (FHF) has reached new heights, with $6 million raised (more than $5 million for FHF and almost $1 million for FHF NZ). On top of many other fundraising initiatives, 20 cents from each pair of glasses sold at participating stores helps support the foundation, which is then used to help build a stronger workforce of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders in eye health, and improve eye health coverage across Australia.
Looking forward
Ashby rounded off his SCC 2022 address with a glimpse of what’s to come at Specsavers.
“In the people space, we are launching new career pathways for optometrists working in our business, and technology changes that will provide a new way of looking at clinical images so that it’s easy to access the most important information,” he said.
“There will also be some Socrates (Specsavers’ patient management system) changes in Australia to make it easier to record eye health data and allow PBS prescribing through the platform. And in New Zealand, we are pleased to say we are finally integrating OCT into the Genysis platform as well, a change you’ve been waiting for, for some time.”
To improve the customer experience, Ashby said Specsavers’ clinical performance consultants will provide more training for clinical support teams such as new training for pre-testers to ensure there’s better information coming into the consultation, as well as a plethora of clinical tips around effective and efficient clinical decision making for optometrists.
“Finally, I want to acknowledge the amazing outcomes achieved in avoidable blindness already that have hugely benefited the older patients in our practices. Now we will apply that same focus to younger people in our stores,” Ashby said, hinting at a greater emphasis on myopia management.
“There’s a unique opportunity for children … new technology can help young myopes avoid avoidable blindness much sooner than previously, and we will be providing you more ranges of products and new training so you can impact younger people in our stores just as much you support the older people.”
Editor’s note: At SCC 2022, Specsavers also announced its highly anticipated Doug Perkins Medal and Dame Mary Perkins Award winners for 2022. More information on this can be found here. Meanwhile, click here for an in-depth article on the exceptional act of patient care that landed Mr Surendran Naidoo, from Specsavers Dapto, with his Dame Mary Perkins Award.
More information about Specsavers initiatives can be accessed here.
