Hospital optometrists virtual conference resounding success

Hospital optometrists virtual conference resounding success

This year’s HOAC Virtual, the online Hospital Optometrists Annual Conference, run by the Association of Optometrists and supported by Menicon, No7 Contact Lenses and Optelec, enjoyed unrivalled popularity with practitioners.

Attracting over 1600 attendees, with nearly 1700 CET points awarded, the virtual conference offered a dedicated day of online education for those working in a hospital environment or considering it.

Consultant optometrist, Andrew Tompkin, who helped develop the conference programme said: “The roles undertaken by hospital optometrists continue to expand and this has particularly been seen in the pandemic, where junior medical staff have been redeployed to other duties.

The conference highlighted how hospital optometrists have contributed to the resilience of the NHS, filling some roles that traditionally would have been entirely dependent on medics.

“Recent events have also created opportunities to explore alternative and innovative ways of working – the conference was a platform to share that learning,” he added.

HOAC virtual consisted of a series of webinars by speakers from Cardiff University, Google Health, Manchester Royal Eye Hospital, Moorfields Eye Hospital and the Royal Hallamshire Hospital, Sheffield.

Subjects covered included ocular oncology referral, emergency eye care, glaucoma and the use of artificial intelligence in predicting eye disease. The webinars ‘Is it a melanoma?’ and ‘Tales of the unexpected from the emergency eye department’ proved most popular, with over 650 practitioners in attendance at each session.

The conference took place at the end of September. All the webinars were recorded and can now be accessed from the AOP website