TWELVE MONTH REVIEW OF CONSULTATIONS IN A TERTIARY HOSPITAL EMERGENCY OPHTHALMOLOGY CLINIC

Purpose:To determine demographics and clinica l characteristics of patients presenting to an emer-gency ophthalmology clinic within a major publict ertiary hospital and to identify possible targets to improve delivery of patient care Methods:Retrospective study of patients attending the emergency ophthalmology clinic over a 12 month period between June 2016 to May 2017 at the Department of Ophthalmology, Canberra Hospital,Canberra, Australia. Data collected from electronicappointment records.Results:There were 4188 individual consultationsfor 2235 patients in a 12 month period from June2016May 2017. Mean age of patients seen was50 21 years, with males accounting for 55% of pre-sentations. The mean numbers of emergency clinic reviews were 1.87 1.40 consultations (range 1 -14). Of the patients seen in the emergency ophthal-mology clinic, 577 patients (26%) were subse-quently seen in a consultant ophthalmologist clinic,of which 132 were existing patients of a consultantclinic. The busiest clinic sessions were Friday morn-ing clinics (mean 13.58 4.85 consults), and thebusiest month was March 2017 (424 consultations).Conclusion:The emergency ophthalmology clinic provides an acute triage pathway for urgent referrals to the eye clinic. Early identification of presentations requiring transfer of care may optimise referrals to subspecialist clinics