A Clearer Path Forward: Improving How We Educate Patients
The Context
Throughout residency, one of the patterns I noticed again and again was how much information patients were expected to retain after an office visit. Ophthalmology appointments, as do all other medical specialties, can involve multiple nuanced diagnoses, multi-step treatment plans, and careful follow-up timelines. Yet at the end of the encounter, most patients walked out with only a verbal explanation, and nothing to refer back to. This was most evident at the VA, where our electronic medical software had no option to provide patient information. I often found myself sketching out personalized instructions on scratch paper or typing short summaries into Microsoft Word and then printing it just so my patients had something tangible to reference at home. It was clear that patients valued this, but creating these summaries manually was time consuming, lacked standardization, and very inefficient.
As I transitioned into clinical practice, I assumed that my practice’s EMR and my excellent staff would be able to handle this better. However, what I found instead was again a manual, incomplete process where after-visit summaries were either completely lacking (if they were given at all), or were overly complex, cluttered, multi-page files with a lot of words, but without the useful information. The clarity patients needed simply wasn’t there.
The Problem
The gap between what patients needed and what the system delivered became increasingly obvious. Our EMR software had some tools in place, but they didn’t work well and were not used by my team. My staff worked to write out and print out the most important information (what medications to take and when), but there was no time for information about why those medications were written. Moreover, if I told a patient what symptoms to be on the lookout for, I wasn’t sure they would remember, since this was rarely in the printout. When my examination found multiple different problems, which is a majority of the time, there was no tool to help combine the information to one succinct place.
The result was a recurring problem I saw as both a resident and an attending: clinicians or staff either spent precious minutes crafting individualized instructions from scratch, or patients left without the necessary information to meaningfully support their understanding. That gap carries consequences. Patients forget key instructions, misunderstand timelines, or feel unsure about next steps - all of which can affect outcomes and satisfaction. I wanted a way to elevate this part of the patient experience without adding more administrative burden or excessive costs.
The Solution
To address this, I built my own Ophthalmology After-Visit Summary Generator as a simple, customizable, and fast tool that sits entirely outside the EMR. The idea was to create something that:
avoids protected health information,
uses clean, patient-friendly language, and
produces a print-ready summary in under a minute
It allows users to choose from pre-formatted explanations for common diagnoses while still leaving full room for editing and personalization. Clinicians can add new diagnoses on the spot, adjust explanations, or create their own templates. The emphasis is on clarity and efficiency - a tool that feels light enough to use during busy clinic days but polished enough to meaningfully improve communication.
Screen shot from using the tool
Real World Success
Since integrating this tool into my workflow, the difference has been immediate and consistent. Patients now leave with a clear, readable explanation of their condition and a straightforward set of instructions they can reference at home. The feedback has been overwhelmingly positive from patients, staff, and colleagues. Patients describe the summaries as helpful, reassuring, and far clearer than what they typically received in the past. From a clinician and staff standpoint, what once took five to ten minutes can now be completed in a fraction of that time. The tool hasn’t just improved patient understanding, it has streamlined my own practice, reduced miscommunication, and elevated the overall visit experience. Now, whenever a patient asks me in a visit “you’re going to write this all down for me, right?”, I can answer confidently with the affirmative.
What began as a personal workaround for a recurring frustration has evolved into a practical, reliable resource that fills a meaningful gap in ophthalmic care. I look forward to continuing to refine it and to seeing how other clinicians use it to enhance the patient experience in their own practices.
The tool is free to use here: https://www.eyeq-consulting.com/ophthalmology-avs
