Vision on Wheels: Bringing Eye Exams to Elementary Schools

For the last 20 years, Cleveland Clinic and its community partners have run Vision First, an outreach program that sends a van to 86 elementary schools in Cleveland and neighboring school districts. Staff on the van provide free screenings for various conditions to any student aged 4 through 6. For kids who need them, they provide full ocular examinations, referrals, and glasses. The program serves an average of 5,500 children per year, around 10% of whom require a referral for further care. In the 2020-2021 school year, staff prescribed 496 pairs of glasses. Kids get to pick out their frames in the van and, like all of Vision First’s services, the glasses are free to students because they’re funded by donations from companies and community partners.

Without access to full patient records, mobile care can seem isolated from the rest of a child’s medical treatment. When Vision First received a new van in 2020, built-in Wi-Fi allowed staff to use an EHR for the first time, reducing that isolation. Optometrists and ophthalmic technicians working on the van now use Epic to view kids’ medical histories and pass exam information along to PCPs, other vision specialists, parents, and guardians, making patient data more connected and accessible.

Read the full article on EpicShare.