Primary healthcare providers, allied health providers and Aboriginal Health Workers and Practitioners play a vital role in reminding people about the importance of regular eye tests to prevent avoidable blindness and vision loss.
When talking to your patients/clients on a day-to-day basis, you can:
- identify people who may be at risk of developing an eye condition,
- encourage them to have regular eye tests,
- provide eye health information to them,
- carry out initial assessment of an eye problem and
- refer to the appropriate eye health professional as necessary.
To assist you with incorporating information on eye health in your day-to-day work, we have gathered a range of resources including online courses and webinars, a professional guide on eye health and vision care, posters, brochures, information sheets and videos in English and 10 other languages.
Community Health
Community health is uniquely placed to contribute to reducing avoidable vision loss in the community, as:
- many community health clients are in population groups at higher risk of such vision loss;
- community health services can play an important role in identifying and referring at risk populations who otherwise may not be able to access care, and as part of this, building effective referral pathways and communications between chronic disease management and eye care services (including providers of low cost eye care);
- community health staff have strong experience in preventive health work, and the embedding and integrating of this into broader models of care.