In the 1970s classic movie Taxi Driver, Robert de Niro acts out in front of a mirror by saying, “Are you talking to me?”. In this blog, yeah, I’m talking to you, as a patient that is. You see, we think communication between patients and doctors is essential, yet it is not only in the exam room where it counts. I think ongoing communication to keep you updated on what is happening in the practice, new equipment, new technologies, preventative eye care, corrective eye care, opportunities to enhance your vision are all important. Therefore, I wanted to touch on a few of the ways that we can communicate with you. The more you know what we do and why we do it, the better eye health and vision care we can provide to you and your family.
Monthly Updates – EmailWe typically will give a short monthly update, 8-10 months during the year. These are usually in an email form whereas is in the distant past they were newsletters. This allows to provide you a quick update on important events that may be occurring at the office, trunk shows, spa days, new treatment or equipment trials, etc. Also included may be comments on recent eye topics you may have seen in the press. The email updates are not spam, in that they provide you a quick synopsis on topics of importance to most of our patients.
RegistriesIt is especially important to provide you updated information specific to your needs, interests and/or diagnoses. Therefore, we keep a multitude of “registries” in our patient database. The registry is really a focused, individual, database for whom we send focused topical information. For instance, if you have been diagnosed as a glaucoma suspect, we will send an introduction to a new laser therapy, or topical medication to our glaucoma/glaucoma suspect registry before we alert the entire patient base. In this way the people who are most interested or could benefit from, glaucoma related information receives the updates first. We may also eventually touch on the registry information in an all-patient email newsletter. Yet not every topic can be covered in the monthly newsletter. Therefore, if you are interested in a particular topic like fishing and eye safety, macular degeneration, glaucoma, dry eyes, cataracts or laser surgery, we’ll add you to the registry. We have about 25 different individual registries. Email Ariel@coolspringseyecare.com or rachelle@donelsoneyecare.com and they’ll make sure that you are on a registry so you can get the most timely information about eyes, specific to your interest. Note: you do not have to be a patient or have a diagnosis to be on a registry. As an example, many of our patients have a mother or father who has macular degeneration and may in fact be in another state. Yet, they are very interested in being on the macular degeneration registry so that when new information or research comes out, they can inform their parents.
BlogsYes, I try to dictate or have 2 blogs a month to update you on something exciting, new or topical in our office. Sometimes I just want to talk about something interesting and see what type of feedback you as a patient provide me. Today, I am trying to educate you on the different types of communication methods that we use to build a close doctor patient relationship in clinical care.
PodcastsIn April of this year we started our “As I See It” podcast series. It is available on iTunes now, so I encourage you to subscribe. This weekly podcast talks about eye health and vision issues, the delivery of healthcare (a passion of our doctors and mine) or topical issues of interest. For instance, we talked in recent updates about COVID from the perspective of different specialists across the country. We also discussed how we orient new staff members, social media and healthcare practices, our new headache solving lens called Neurolens, and some introductions to a few of our key doctors and personnel. In upcoming segments, you will be hearing more on macular genetic testing to diagnose risk and vitamin sensitivity in age related macular degeneration. We will have more updates on chapters from Dr. Susan and my book, One Patient at a Time; 8 chapters 135 lessons touching particularly on patient care. We put in print what we believe in our desire to excel as a healthcare organization. We want you to hold us to it and having your own copy of the book will help us maintain the high standards we set for ourselves in delivering care for you.
Special mailingsWe provide certain special updates when we are having a trunk show, a spa day or something that is of particular importance in the office. Recently, we sent out a couple of updates, written and video, on our COVID safety precautions. We thought it was important enough, that we added videos on our website, Facebook and in an email to make sure you were aware that we are working hard to make this the safest office and place you can go outside of your home.
We have a lot of other ways that our doctors will email, text and communicate with you your general physicians, specialists and other people. The above examples touch on a few of the most important ways that we at Cool Springs and Donelson Eyecare intend to stay in touch with you and give you the right amount of information at the right time. We want to improve our ability to prevent, correct, and enhance your eye health and vision care.