ZEISS FORUM Case Study

It is one of the first days of spring. The late afternoon sun shines into AugenCentrum Rosenheim, which welcomes its patients with a bright and friendly atmosphere. The practice has existed since 1998, and now has two additional branches in Grassau and Oberaudorf. As two of the five founding partners, Prof. Dr. Ekkehard Fabian and Dr. Ulrich Seher have been involved from the very beginning. Together with their colleagues Prof. Dr. Philipp Eberwein and Dr. Thomas Pfeiler, they have established AugenCentrum Rosenheim as a 
respected institution with a reputation that extends across regions. The center is known for its pioneering role in developing both surgical and IT solutions.

AugenCentrum Rosenheim receives up to 300 patients per day. About 6000 surgical procedures are performed in the practice’s two operating rooms each year. When you ask the ophthalmologists what their biggest challenges in their daily practice are, they mention the increasing volume and complexity of the imaging data generated by the devices used in ophthalmology today. In order to meet these challenges, the AugenCentrum chose to start using the data management solution FORUM^® from ZEISS back in 2009/10. They also played a key role in developing and implementing the solution in clinical settings.

The AugenCentrum is equipped with Mac PCs throughout. The practice staff therefore use the electronic patient file software tomedo^® for MAC OS to create and manage files and plan schedules. But how can this system be integrated with the AugenCentrum’s examination devices, which only run on Windows?
“For us, FORUM functions as an integral interface that allows communication between these two worlds. This is a huge advantage for our practice network—without it, it wouldn’t work,” says Dr. Pfeiler.

When a patient is admitted at the AugenCentrum reception, their core data is added to the FORUM Worklist with a single mouse click. This means that the data is available to practice staff across all diagnostic devices, without the need for any further manual data entry. For example, if a patient undergoes a fundus examination, the image is sent back to ZEISS FORUM. The ophthalmologist then has immediate access to the image in their consultation room and can make a diagnosis. “The advantage of FORUM is that a patient’s findings are always available—in the examination room, in the consultation room, or in the operating room. The fact that data from ZEISS IOLMaster^® and ZEISS CALLISTO eye^® can be integrated using FORUM is particularly useful in our cataract surgery processes,” says Dr. Seher.

ZEISS FORUM is also a great help to ophthalmologists at AugenCentrum Rosenheim during patient education. Thanks to ZEISS FORUM, the images are available in the consultation room immediately—allowing ophthalmologists to inform the patient about their condition and explain what treatment is required using the patient’s own images. “Showing a patient the link between our findings and the images carries much more weight than simply talking about it. Information that was previously provided only in words is now provided using images, and that is a very important step,” explains Prof. Dr. Fabian.

The FORUM-based Workplaces from ZEISS also make it easier for ophthalmologists to make a diagnosis and analyze the progression of a disease. In particular, Guided Progression Analysis and the support that Glaucoma Workplace provides for follow-ups are invaluable tools for the doctors. “This allows us to monitor the treatment of glaucoma patients whose visual fields are still intact over the course of many years, and we can now do it better than we ever could with drawings of the fundus,” says Prof. Dr. Eberwein. Dr. Pfeiler emphasizes that the patient education supported by Retina Workplace is a key component of IVOM therapy, in which the patient’s eye is injected with medication: “The patients will only be able to continue adhering to the treatment over the course of several years if they understand what it’s all about. And they can only understand that if they are able to see how their retina has changed each month. If they don’t get to see that, they might discontinue the treatment.” This also means that the number of patients consenting to specific treatments has increased since ZEISS FORUM was implemented. “The patient’s own insight into their condition has increased dramatically—and that’s real progress,” says Prof. Dr. Fabian.

FORUM from ZEISS provides yet another benefit when it comes to documentation. Ophthalmologists are required to store patient data for ten years, and this can be a real logistical challenge when using paper-based documentation. For the practice staff at AugenCentrum Rosenheim, documentation used to involve printing out a patient’s OCT images and filing them in physical files. Now, however the practice relies on the ZEISS software-based solution. Dr. Pfeiler sums up his thoughts on the matter: “I’m so glad that we have FORUM and I can no longer imagine how our practice would run without this data management solution.”

The next project on the cards for the AugenCentrum is an ambitious one: establishing a network between all of the practices so that patient data is available at all three sites at any time. This project will soon be realized with the help of the ZEISS FORUM multi-site solution.