Arbor Family Health is a Federally Qualified Health Center located outside Baton Rouge, LA in a rural area. The Center serves patients across four clinic sites, where leadership is focused on providing effective care for patients living with diabetes and other chronic illnesses. The Center is in the second year of a four-year grant aimed at improving care for patients living with diabetes and pre-diabetes. Providing access to the annual diabetic retinal exam is a key clinical quality measure within the grant program.
The patient population served by Arbor Family Health faces several challenges related to completing their annual retinal exam. Not only are there limited eye care specialists in the immediate area, but traveling to the greater Baton Rouge area is a significant transportation challenge for most patients, as is finding available appointment times. “Offering diabetic retinal exams right in our clinics helps ensure more patients get the annual check they need,” says Linda Matessino, R.N., M.P.H., Director of Grant Programs at Arbor Family Health.
“Offering diabetic retinal exams right in our clinics helps ensure more patients get the annual check they need.”
— Linda Matessino, R.N., M.P.H., Director of Grant Programs at Arbor Family Health
The “Healthy Patient Healthy Life Intersect ” grant is the second grant Arbor Family Health has used to help provide effective care for patients living with diabetes. During the initial grant cycle, the Center used two Welch Allyn RetinaVue 100 Imagers shared across the four sites to complete diabetic retinal exams. Matessino learned about the Welch Allyn RetinaVue 700 Imager at a HRSA-grantee meeting from other Community Health Center colleagues. She led the program’s transition from RetinaVue 100 Imagers to RetinaVue 700 Imagers for the program as well as the purchase of two additional imagers. Now, all four clinics have full-time access to a RetinaVue 700 Imager for patient exams.
“Standardization of workflows with the RetinaVue care delivery model for clinics, monitoring and sharing program metrics, and training refreshers have helped make the teleretinal program stronger over the past year.”
— Linda Matessino, R.N., M.P.H., Director of Grant Programs at Arbor Family Health
Matessino’s goal was to build on the Center’s initial success and grow the teleretinal program by completing exams on more patients for the second grant cycle. Grant funding was used to purchase the imagers, and 2023 was the first full year the RetinaVue 700 Imagers were used in the clinics. Compared to 2022, 2023 saw a 300% increase in the number of patients who completed diabetic retinal exams. Reports from the Welch Allyn RetinaVue Network allow Matessino to easily view exams completed at each clinic, readability rates, percentage of pathology detected and more. “The reports help us understand when and where refresher training may be needed and what best practices can be shared across all clinics,” said Matessino. The staff at Baxter were very responsive to providing additional training for Arbor Family Health staff in order to increase proficiency of completing a readable exam on the patient.
Arbor Family Health is more than halfway to achieving its goal of completing exams on 80% of patients living with diabetes in the grant program cohort. Providing consistent access to cameras in each clinic has allowed the Center to increase the number of patients who complete exams. Matessino shared, “Standardization of workflows with the RetinaVue care delivery model for our clinics, monitoring and sharing program metrics, and training refreshers have helped make the teleretinal program stronger over the past year. Reporting and training support from the Baxter Customer Success team has helped keep us on track.” “Our staff is proud of their metrics,” said Matessino. “But we’re not just focused on the reports and metrics. Our grant program allows us to make sure patients get the care they need.”
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