Exciting Updates at Wills Eye Hospital
I was amazed walking into Wills Eye Hospital last week. The Cataract and Primary Eye Care service (CPEC) where I teach at Wills has been completely remodeled and re-outfitted with new equipment. My last several teaching sessions there were done amidst chaos and construction as (almost) the entire twelfth floor was remodeled.
The reception area is attractive and welcoming. The rooms used by the technicians who do the initial evaluation and work-up are convenient. It is nice for me that the exam rooms are such that it is easier for me to find any given Wills resident whom I might need to see to review a patient. The patient “flow” is better and more comfortable.
The new equipment is very nice to have on the service. OCT is a widely-used imaging modality which is particularly useful for glaucoma and for retinal disease; never before has the CPEC had an OCT on the floor; we always had to send a patient elsewhere in the hospital to get one, which is inconvenient for both patients and doctors. So it’s nice to have a new OCT readily available (even though the one we have at our office in Thorndale is a better instrument!). The IOL-Master (used to measure before cataract surgery to choose the best lens implant) is also very nice (but the Lenstar which we use in Thorndale is better! Bureaucracies do not always make the best choice!).
All these changes do make teaching at Wills Eye Hospital more comfortable and easier, and they should make the patient experience there better. I look forward to continuing to teach at one of the nation’s premier ophthalmic institutions.