Innovative care models: Expanding nurses' and optometrists' roles in ophthalmology

Area of Science:

• Ophthalmology
• Healthcare Policy
• Medical Ethics

Background:

• Healthcare systems face increasing demands for trained professionals.
• Expanding the scope of practice for allied health professionals is a key strategy to meet these demands.
• This study focuses on ethical considerations of expanded roles in ophthalmology.

Purpose of the Study:

• To explore the ethics of expanding allied health professional roles in ophthalmology.
• To compare the ethical justification of nurses administering intravitreal injections and optometrists functioning as physician extenders.
• To provide an algorithm for the ethical implementation of expanded allied healthcare roles.

Main Methods:

• Literature review of empirical research on nurses administering intravitreal injections.
• Literature review of empirical research on optometrists functioning as physician extenders.
• Ethical analysis of both expanded roles.

Main Results:

• Nurses administering intravitreal injections are ethically justified.
• Optometrists, with standardized training, can ethically function as primary eye care providers.
• An algorithm for ethical introduction of innovative expanded allied healthcare is proposed.

Conclusions:

• Expanding allied health roles, like nurses administering intravitreal injections and optometrists in primary eye care, is ethically sound and improves healthcare accessibility.
• Standardized training is crucial for the ethical and effective expansion of optometrists' roles.
• The proposed algorithm can guide the ethical integration of new expanded healthcare practices.