Improving the patient's experience

Abstract

When arriving at the eye care unit, patients often feel unsure of what is going to happen, anxious, and vulnerable. Many have never found themselves in a hospital setting before or have never travelled or slept away from home.It is an integral part of eye care to make sure a patient's experience is a positive one. This article offers suggestions for good, evidence-based, practice to improve this experience.Our suggestions should necessarily be adapted to local context: resource-poor settings are particularly challenging work environments and staff may need to display more ingenuity in working towards good practice, when striving to achieve the goals of VISION 2020.

Keywords

• Communication
• Counselling
• Health Services Accessibility
• Patient-Satisfaction
• Patient Education
• Hygiene