Gavin Corrigan, Optometrist, Corrigan Opticians

The Northern Ireland Electronic Care Record (NIECR) user base has been successfully extended to include community optometrists. In this video, Gavin Corrigan, an Optometrist at Corrigan Opticians in Cookstown, Northern Ireland, explains how access to the NIECR is allowing optometrists to improve care through more informed decision-making.

Transcript

The NIECR supports me in that I can follow a patient’s journey along the hospitalized service pathway. So, from when I refer them, I can see what has happened at the hospital, what condition they’ve been diagnosed with, what procedures they’re going through, and what procedures they’ve had at the hospital. It allows me to give better advice to the person or the patient that’s in front of me. 

The NIECR is a very easy system to use. It takes two or three seconds to log on to the system. The information that you find is very well laid out, and there are only a couple of buttons to click. It’s a very secure system, so it’s very safe for me to use with regard to patients. I can use the system when the patient is in the chair beside me so that I can have instantaneous information in front of me. 

Well, there’s one particular patient that I can think of that has helped me with the NIECR. This guy came in, and his main complaint, the main thing that he could remember from the hospital eye service, was that the ophthalmologist told him that he was losing power in his retina. And I was instantaneously able to look that up in the system to find out he had a condition called Cone-rod dystrophy. I was able to give that person better advice, give him a prognosis of what his condition entails, and talk him through the repercussions of having that condition. He was under the assumption that his condition was manageable and would improve with glasses. Obviously, with something conditioned like Cone-rod dystrophy, you just manage it as best you can.Â