AMD monitoring effective in the community

Monitoring of wet AMD in the community setting can be just as effective as hospital-based care, according to research published in BMJOpen this week.

A research team, led by Professor Usha Chakravarthy of the Queen’s University of Belfast, found that after training decisions made by optometrists based in the community were as good as hospital-based ophthalmologists. Optometrists tended to be more cautious, meaning they made more false positive errors but correctly identified more patients in whom wet AMD had truly returned.

‘Sharing care has the potential to reduce workload in hospitals,’ said professor Chakravarthy. ‘Our research has highlighted that routine monitoring of AMD can effectively take place in the community, which not only frees up hospital appointments, but is often more convenient for patients.’