Abstract
Purpose :
To describe a large academic medical center’s use of an inpatient ophthalmology service and determine the most common diagnoses in both the pediatric and adult populations. The goals of this study are to compare the reasons for consult and the primary ophthalmic diagnoses among the pediatric and adult consultation service at a single institution.
Methods :
A retrospective chart review of all inpatient ophthalmology consults from July 2014 to June 2015 was conducted. Patient age, gender, consulting service, time of exam, exam type (slit lamp/bedside), primary medical diagnosis, reason for consult, primary ophthalmic diagnosis, and ophthalmic interventions were recorded. Data were analyzed using a two-sample t-test with significance determined at p < 0.05.
Results :
863 consults were reviewed. The most common reasons for consultation the adult population was eye pain (15.7%, P<0.01) while the pediatric population showed a statistically significant difference in consultation request from the adult population. The most common primary medical ophthalmic diagnosis among adults were: normal exam, orbital fracture, and corneal abrasion respectively. A higher rate of normal exams was observed between pediatric consultations (58.7%) versus adult consultations (29.6%). See Table 1.
Conclusions :
Academic medical centers like Westchester Medical Center have a highly diverse patient population. Our results show the characteristics of consultations from various services in the hospital, the reasons those consults were called, and the final diagnoses of the ophthalmic consultation. These data can be used by ophthalmic physicians and house officers to improve their own skills, and to teach non-ophthalmologists about the management of common ophthalmic diagnoses.
This is an abstract that was submitted for the 2017 ARVO Annual Meeting, held in Baltimore, MD, May 7-11, 2017.