Conversations With Clinicians, Edition 3: Sarah Farrell, Head of Optometry and Low Vision services at Addenbrooke’s Hospital in Cambridge

Please introduce yourself, and tell us what drew you to a career in optometry

I’m Sarah Farrell, Head of Optometry and Low Vision services at Addenbrooke’s Hospital in Cambridge. I’ve been an optometrist for almost 20 years and have spent the majority of my career within hospital eye services. I love the clinical focus of hospital optometry and feel lucky to be working at a time where optometrists have such an important role within secondary care.

What would you say are the most pressing challenges facing you and your colleagues at the present moment?

Meeting the overwhelming volume of patient need is the biggest challenge we face within ophthalmology. We’re always looking for new ways of working that allows us to meet the demand without compromising quality of care. I would say recruitment, retention and maintaining wellbeing in the current climate is also a key focus.

What do you consider the role of advice and guidance technology to be in optometry? Can it help address the challenges you outlined above?

At our unit, hospital optometrists perform the majority of the referral triage so the A&G technology provides a direct link between us and community optometrists, who are the largest group of referrers into ophthalmology.  This can help in reducing unnecessary referrals but also highlight those higher risk patients who need referral and treatment without delay. Our goal is to ensure that the patients attending our ophthalmology clinics are booked in the correct place with the correct clinician within the correct timeframe and I think using advice and guidance is key to achieving this.

What has the impact of your use of Cinapsis been (so far)? Both in terms of your work and on patient outcomes

There has been a clear correlation between a reduction in the number of false positive referrals in our paediatric department and introducing Cinapsis. When the triage clinician takes the time to provide some detailed feedback to the community optometrist it results in much more appropriate referrals and happier families on the other end! The direct communication also strengthens the relationship between primary and secondary care and I find this feedback has a positive knock on effect with the quality of other referrals from those optometrists who have used the service.

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How else do you use Cinapsis in your work?

Cinapsis works really well for our rapid access referral pathway for wet macular degeneration. Optometrists are able to attach detailed retinal scans to the referral which in turn allows us to book those patients who need it directly into a “one stop” consultant clinic with treatment on the same day. We also use the system for post-operative cataract reports to be returned which is a commissioned pathway between ourselves and the community optometrists. This allows us to meet really high standards for national ophthalmology database reporting whilst keeping care out in the community.  

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What would you say to a colleague who is considering adopting Cinapsis for referrals and A&G?

Go for it! It can be challenging to get everyone on board with “another new system” but the benefits become apparent quite quickly. There is a reasonable amount of customisation which is a useful feature to ensure you get the most out of it for your own service.

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What are your hopes for the future of optometry?

It would be great to see a more homogenous approach to digitalisation. Every hospital in our region has a different Electronic Patient Record and neighbouring regions have different referral systems. As far as the scope for the profession goes, hospital optometry is constantly evolving. Our role will continue to respond to the changing NHS landscape and I feel the sky's the limit in terms of what optometrists can do.  And no, I don’t think we can be replaced by AI!

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Thanks so much Sarah, it was a pleasure to interview you for this blog series. If you’re a Cinapsis user and would like to take part in Conversations with Clinicians, drop our team an email on: hello@cinapsis.com

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