Our Project

There are more than 135,000 people in Wisconsin living with diabetes who are at risk for developing diabetic eye disease. Less than half of those with diabetes receive yearly eye screening.  Having a retinal camera available to populations with less access to care can increase screening rates and decrease blindness. Currently, we have five cameras in use at the Mile Bluff Medical Center. There is one camera at the UW specialty clinic in Mauston, WI, and one in each of Mile Bluff’s Outreach clinics which are located in New Lisbon, Elroy, Necedah and Lake Delton. Once images are taken, they are sent to UW ophthalmologists to be examined. We have also met with primary care providers, medical assistants, and health information technology staff at the Mile Bluff Medical Center to walk-through the teleophthalmology referral workflow in their electronic health record system.

We have three goals for this program

1.Identify…

what keeps people from using teleophthalmology in a rural, multi-payer setting.  Interviews with providers and patients helped to characterize barriers and facilitators to the use of teleophthalmology within primary clinics in a rural health setting

2.Develop…

an implementation package for teleophthalmology at a single primary care site.  This package will address the primary care provider and patient barriers to screening based on the Chronic Care and NIATx Models

3.Test…

the impact of the implementation package on screening rates for diabetic retinopathy at multiple sites.  Using a stepped-wedge design, the package will be tested at primary care clinics throughout Wisconsin