Delegation of Dispensing

[Jason Carruthers]

In your practice, do you delegate the act of measuring, fitting or dispensing eyewear to someone other than an OD or optician?

Why or why not?

[For-Life]

In your practice, do you delegate the act of measuring, fitting or dispensing eyewear to someone other than an OD or optician?

Why or why not?

We do for measuring in our office. The optician's do it, but there is a member of our staff who is highly trained and very accurate who we allow to finish the sale.

[rep]

In your practice, do you delegate the act of measuring, fitting or dispensing eyewear to someone other than an OD or optician?

Why or why not?

A number of the most profitable accounts I have now require that all measurements are double checked by another optician. Their error rates have dropped a ton with very few re-do's

rep

[rbaker]

A number of the most profitable accounts I have now require that all measurements are double checked by another optician. Their error rates have dropped a ton with very few re-do's

rep

Now that is truly scary, the inept checking the inept. If you are an "optician" and can not take accurate measurements, it's time to find another job in another field. If you employ "opticians" who can not be trusted to take accurate measurements its time to close your doors and start a cobbler shop.

Cripes . . . here's the problem. It ain't "evil empires" or "third party" - it's gomers who can't use a ruler.

We have met the enemy and it is us . . . Pogo

[hcjilson]

With the amount of fitting aids available to today's opticians, anyone using a ruler today is in no way to be considered "state of the art". The ruler could be used for double check but thats about it.

Pupilometers, seg measures, and the felt tip pen have almost made rulers obsolete.We don't use them for PD's or seg heights any more, just to check the height of the dot on the demo lens. Even that measurement was a double check on the seg measure.

When I employed apprentices, it was mandatory for them to take all the measurements when time allowed either before or after the optician. It was done that way until everyone was comfortable with the apprentice's abilities. ( including the apprentice)

[Chris Ryser]

Harry's respeonse is the perfect answer. I would not even add a dot.

By the way I never new that a ruler should used for measurements of a PD until I came to North America where at the time nobody owned a pupillometer. At the time in Europe we already measured monocular PD's with a Zeiss or an SL (Essilor) pupillometer which was a must for fitting Varilux and just plain simple ST lenses.

[hcjilson]

I just received a letter from my college. A forum is being taken place in Ontario to answer the following questions:

1. Us there a risk of harm in dispensing?
2. What aspects of dispensing should be a controlled act under the RHPA?
3. How should standards be set and measured for dispensing?
4. Is refraction within the scope of practice of Opticians?
5. How should standards be set and measured for refraction?

For Life, I see a whole new thread in the quote above. If you would agree, I can split this thread. Never having used that moderator's tool before, it may take some doing but there are some very very good topics in those 5 questions which should be standing on their own for comment. If you prefer, Just delete the post here and start a new thread with a title of "What do you think?" or something designed to get some attention. I am most interested in how you answered the questions. Don't answer here, wait until the thread is started. Let me know by PM, how you want to handle this.( or if you want it changed)

[rbaker]

Harry:


Of course we should check everything a protégé does. That’s of course assuming the teacher knows his/her cookies. That’s how we became legends in the eye care field. Back in our day, we sat at the feet of good teachers who knew their cookies and who shared their knowledge with us. They checked everything we did and if we screwed up they corrected us. If we screwed up all the time they suggested we seek another line of work and fired us. I was responding with the cited OD or optician in the original post in mind.


Chris:

By ruler I implied any measuring device that you can get accurate measurements with. Sometimes it’s a pupilometer and sometimes it a piece of wood or plastic with lines and numbers on it. I am not that terribly impressed with pupilometers as they leave a lot to be desired when dealing with brats, the insane and nystagmus. The gold standard for PD measurements remains the PD rule and muscle light. Takes a little skill and practice to become proficient. Hmmm . . perhaps that explains the popularity of the pupilometers. Or, my favorite, taking PD from the phoropter.

Just my humble opinion.