I picture EyeDock as a lot of things, but it’s main purpose has always been to be something of a search engine for all things related to eye care. While it’s never going to be the next Google, I’m sure going to try my darndest to come as close as an optometrist/programmer can.

I’ve had a “universal search” bar at the top of this site for quite a long time. It has always been used to search many of the databases on EyeDock, but I’ve recently made some enhancements that make it much more powerful. 

And, as always, I’m hoping this is another step in achieving my primary goal: To help our fellow eye care providers find information as quickly as possible. 

I recently wrote a blog post about how I would like to see contact lens data and calculations integrated into EMRs. I even went so far to create a little mockup of how it could work.

My intention was to create a concept piece - an idealized look at what the future might, or should, hold for us EMR-using ODs in the trenches.

I’ve received some great feedback from people expressing their frustration that these dreams are not a reality. As a person who has been brainstorming about how this could work for many years, I share that frustration.

However, my deep thinking on this subject has also given me some perspective on why things move slower than we’d like them to. As an optometrist who also writes software I can see both sides of this issue.

So, why can’t EMRs do more fancy things like better integrate contact lens data?

Did you know you can start an EyeDock search without first going to www.eyedock.com? This has always been true, but historically it has required some hacks on the user’s part.

I’ve recently added some features to EyeDock to this nearly effortless. All you need to do is go to eyedock.com and most modern browsers will recognize that our site has custom searches available and take care of the rest.

Just a quick post to make you aware that I’ve uploaded a new version of the Parks Three Step tool.

It works the same as always - just answer the three questions to establish which EOM is to blame for acquired vertical diplopia.

So what’s changed?

Instead of just taking your input and spitting out an answer it now takes a “show your work” approach. For each of the three steps the tool will 

1. Explain which muscles are suspected based on your observations of the patient.
2. Show an illustration of #1

Why?

I’ve never been very keen on the idea of trusting a computer to make my clinical decisions. On the other hand, I don’t do the Parks Three Step test very often, and thinking through what each step means when I have a patient in my chair can be a bit taxing. Ideally, I’d like my the tools and calculators I create for EyeDock to make your clinical decision making easier, but I don’t want them to be a replacement for your thinking or common sense.

Hopefully this new version will strike the balance of being useful but also educational.

As an aside, this is why I decided to display optical crosses in the oblique cross cylinder calculator and outlined exactly how the contact lens calculations are done.

- Todd