It is important to raise awareness about how overall health habits affect the eyes and vision and how to keep a child's eyes safe from injury and infection. Ensure your team has what they need to encourage routine eye exams for your younger patients.
We believe these challenges are no match for the local eye care provider, who can step in and fill an essential role for community members. By implementing our recommended marketing campaigns and maintaining an active educational presence in your community, you can position your practice as a trusted advocate of children's eye health and bring in more customers.
Challenge 1: Skipping yearly eye exams
Children's eye health awareness is important year-round. Their Optometrist is the front line of defense to ensure children's eyes are healthy and their vision is as clear as possible. Let your patients know you're there to fill that role for them.
Children shouldn't have to go without their eye exams and potentially struggle with vision or eye health issues. Often vision or eye health problems aren't apparent in children. By educating parents and teachers about the importance of regular eye exams, you can potentially prevent or treat an issue before it becomes serious. As an ECP, you are about the future eye health of the community — show them that!
Challenge 2: Indoor lifestyles are increasing myopia
Over the past 15 years, and especially during the pandemic, the world has witnessed an explosion of cases of myopia. An estimated 30% of the world is currently myopic, according to the Myopia Institute. If unchecked, it is estimated that by 2050, nearly half of the world's population will be myopic. That is a staggering 5 billion people with potentially preventable vision loss and an increased risk of sight-threatening complications.
The increased indoor lifestyle of children has significantly raised the stakes and increased the burden of myopia. Evidence from across the globe found that an increase in near vision based activities and less time outdoors has resulted in a spike in new cases of myopia and the progression of myopia.
As a local ECP, you have the knowledge and foresight to step in right here. We want you to be a trusted, competitive eye care practice by making myopia treatment accessible and easily understood by your community. To do that, you need the best educational materials for parents. Download our myopia white paper to learn more about the importance of catching and slowing the progression of childhood myopia.
Challenge 3: Increased Screen Time, More Digital Eye Strain
There has been, without a doubt, an increase in screen time — for both education and entertainment. Parents should have even more concerns for their children's vision with increased screen time. Digital eye strain (DES) is a real thing that not everyone fully understands. As an ECP, you should have open communication with patients often so they recognize the signs.
Adult patients likely deal with a lot at home, letting certain aspects of routine healthcare fall through the cracks. Remind them about the importance of vision care and that provincial health care plan covers children's eye exams and most extended health benefits plans cover eyewear or make premium products more affordable. They and their children deserve to protect the future of their eye health, and once they make their appointment, make sure to treat all of their DES symptoms.
Read more about DES in our white paper, Our eyes in a digital era. It examines both the causes and possible solutions to what has become a widespread phenomenon.
As an ECP, You Are the Solution
You are crucial to your community. You can now step in and communicate with children and their families, letting them know that signs of changing vision and discomfort may not be recognized the way they once were. You are here to observe, educate, and solve.
Start educating patients about how uncorrected vision disorders can make learning more difficult. Due to so much information being presented visually to children, any problem that interferes with getting this visual information efficiently to the brain can make learning more difficult.
