The role of the ophthalmic technician in today’s eyecare world is more crucial than ever. In most practice settings, technicians are the first and sometimes last staff members to interact with a patient. They must therefore be polite, professional, and proficient in performing their duties while leaving a positive, lasting impression on the patient.
In this article, we’ll discuss seven practice habits of highly successful ophthalmic technicians. While many responsibilities of the technician may quickly become second nature, it is important to not become complacent when taking patient history, interacting throughout the exam, and performing diagnostic tests. Let’s review!
1) Put yourself in the patient's position.
To be the best instructor possible, you have to know what the patient sees when they look into diagnostic equipment. Periodically put yourself in the patient’s chair. What color or shape is the fixation target? How could you describe it quickly and accurately for a patient? When you sit in the exam chair, is the Snellen chart centered? Is the projector lens clean?
When you’re in a space every day, it’s easy to forget how important these details are, because although they don’t directly affect the outcome of an exam or the patient’s health, they can affect the comfort, trust, and confidence of the patient.
2) Check equipment each morning—before you’ve got a patient in front of it.
Nothing looks less professional than sitting a patient down in front of a piece of diagnostic equipment only to realize it isn’t operating properly. As part of your morning routine, turn on and check each piece of equipment you will be using to make sure it’s ready and operational.
3) Prepare the patient for each test.
You might do 10 visual fields in a day, but the patient generally only does 1 in a year. Speak in clear simple sentences to explain the instructions. Before the patient even puts their chin on the equipment, tell them what they’re going to see and what to expect. Let the patient know you explain the test the same way to every patient, so they don’t feel like you’re talking down to them specifically.
4) Encourage the patient.
No one wants to feel like they don’t know what they’re doing. When a patient is looking in the correct spot, or the head is in the right position, tell them. Most patients dread a visual field test; rather than agreeing with them that the test is terrible or apologizing for having to put them through it, consider stressing how important and valuable it is. Knowing that they’re assisting in their own care is an empowering concept.
5) Repeat yourself.
During a visual field, you can feel like a pre-recorded message on repeat, telling the patient over and over again to look straight ahead at the fixation target; if you’re not careful, the patient may feel like you’re bullying them. Try to find different ways to say the same thing, taking breaks to encourage them or let them know what they’re doing right.
6) Don’t plant doubt.
Equipment will not always operate as expected. Even when we check the equipment in the morning, a lot can happen in an eight-hour day. When you have a patient in position and suddenly the fundus camera isn’t communicating to the software or your biometry device isn’t focusing properly, the worst thing you could do is disparage the equipment. The patient doesn’t know how long something takes to load or how long it takes for an image to appear, so don’t act like it’s taking a long time. It’s also perfectly acceptable to say, “Hold on. I want to restart the machine. We can come back to this.”
If a patient thinks there might be something wrong with the equipment, regardless of how it affects their exam, they may question the quality of the exam as a whole. Imagine disparaging an IOLMaster, and then using the results of said machine for their cataract surgery. Planting doubt in the calculations could result in major problems later.
7) Know when to give up.
You need to know the limitations of each machine and each patient. If a patient cannot complete a meaningful visual field, or a cataract is too dense to do an OCT, you have to be able to know when to say “enough is enough”. These diagnostic tests are here to help us treat and manage patient disease, forcing a person’s face into a visual field machine for 20 minutes to produce a meaningless test adds nothing to patient care.
Although realizing a machine’s shortcomings may be easy, finding the line for a patient can be much harder. The easiest way to know when to give up is by communicating with the patient before and during the test. If they’re struggling because of an anatomic problem, such as a back or neck problem, let them know you understand the test might be uncomfortable for them, but if they’re willing to try, you’ll do your best to make it as comfortable as it can be.
Lastly, be sure to let them know that they need to tell you if they need a break or if they don’t feel they can complete the test. Letting the patient know that you understand their limitations could be viewed as giving them an easy way out, but often the opposite is true. When a patient knows that you understand they’re uncomfortable, they’re less likely to feel like they have to show you.
Trust your patient and trust yourself
All of these practices overlap and complement each other. When these strategies are used together, you will appear more confident, knowledgeable, and caring to the patient, while also garnering the best results for your doctor.
