Guidelines on glaucoma and the demand for services

Abstract

The authors produced a seasonalised forecast using a linear regression trendline to predict the level of demand for ophthalmology services at Royal Devon and Exeter hospital between 2013 and 2017. The model predicts an average annual increase in demand of 9.92%, but a significant proportion of this predicted increased demand is for glaucoma services. Given the historical patterns of demand observed in the data, it is possible that the increases in demand for glaucoma services have arisen because of dramatically increased referral rates from community optometrists, following the publication by the National Institute for Clinical Excellence (NICE) of clinical guidelines on the diagnosis and management of glaucoma and ocular hypertension (NICE, 2009). As this patient cohort may be best served by assessment outside of secondary care, we would encourage other hospital managers and analysts to produce similar forecasts and consider alternative pathways of care for this patient group.