Preschool Vision Screening Collaborative: Successful Uptake of Guidelines in Primary Care

Preschool vision screening rates in primary care are suboptimal and poorly standardized. The purpose of this project was to evaluate pediatric primary care adherence to and improvement in preschool vision screening guidelines through a learning collaborative environment.

Thirty-nine Ohio primary care providers interested in preschool vision screening self-selected to participate in an Institute for Healthcare Improvement Breakthrough Series learning collaborative that spanned 18 months. Charts of patients attending 3-, 4-, and 5-year well-child visits were randomly selected and reviewed for documentation of vision screening attempts, referrals, and need for rescreening.

Practitioners improved evidenced-based screening attempts for distance visual acuity and stereopsis of 3-5-year-old patients from 18% at baseline to 87% (P < 0.001) at 6 months; improved screening rates were sustained through completion of the collaborative. Baseline referral rates (26%) of abnormal vision screens improved by 59% (P < 0.001) during the first 6 months and were maintained through month 18. Rates for children with incomplete screens that were scheduled for a repeated screening increased during the first 6 months. However, changes in this metric did not reach statistical significance (P = 0.265), nor did it change during the remainder of the collaborative.

Rapid integration and maintenance of preschool vision screening guidelines are feasible across primary care settings utilizing a structured learning collaborative. Challenges with the rescreening processes for children with incomplete vision screens remain, with the 3-year age group having the greatest room for improvement.