1:30min
Optometry Victoria policy and member services manager Kirsty Machon
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An innovative new online resource released by Optometry Victoria helps optometrists audit their professional standards across a range of areas.
Best Practice in Optometry provides easy online access to up-to-date legal, clinical, business and communication standards.
Kirsty Machon, who manages policy and member services at Optometry Victoria, says Best Practice in Optometry is a self-audit tool that collates a wide spectrum of guidelines and standards into one document.
‘Optometry is a health profession practised in an increasingly complex environment, with understandably high expectations from within the profession, among patients and from regulatory bodies,’ Ms Machon said.
‘An important part of our role as a professional body for optometrists is to provide members with the support they need to practise optometry to the highest standard. This resource brings together the many aspects of what this means, mapping and capturing that information, from obligations under legislation, to clinical guidelines, or communicating well with patients.’
The format of the best-practice resource, an online flipbook, can be updated easily, for example, if and when legislation or national registration standards change. Members are encouraged to bookmark it as a handy reference tool, or use it to audit practice policies or procedures.
Currently, the flipbook is divided into eight sections, and each section includes information about and live links to a range of relevant practice information, guidelines or policies outlining expected standards and best practice in that area.
‘We will review this resource every six months to make sure information is current,’ Ms Machon said.
All members Australia-wide can access Best Practice in Optometry on the Optometry Victoria website.