The finalists were selected by their peers from 100 plus entries across the state.

The Community Eye Care (C-Eye-C) project was established in recognition that existing services will not meet the needs of NSW’s ageing population as evidenced by the prolonged waiting lists for access to public hospital ophthalmology clinic services.   The model of shared care between hospital and community eye health providers is set up to ensure patients receive the right care in the right time and place.

Initial results have been very impressive with a high level of satisfaction reported from both patients and the staff involved at the two trial sites and a 47 % “no hospital follow up” resulting in a 7 week reduction in wait lists for the busy ophthalmology outpatient department. A model of care that can be replicated in other NSW public ophthalmology outpatient clinics is currently under development utilising the learnings from this project. Congratulations to Dr Andrew White and the rest of the Western Sydney team for all your hard work.

L-R: Joe Nazarian (optometrist), Clinical A/Prof Andrew White (Westmead ophthalmologist), 'Baxter Health', Belinda Ford (CEYEC Service Coordinator and PhD candidate), Margaret Nguyen (optometrist), Jackie van der Hout (Ophthalmology Administration manager)

L-R: Jackie van der Hout (Ophthalmology Administration manager), Belinda Ford (CEYEC Service Coordinator and PhD candidate), Clinical A/Prof Andrew White (Westmead ophthalmologist), Margaret Nguyen (optometrist), Joe Nazarian (optometrist)