Abstract
Purpose :
Federally Qualified Health Centers (FQHCs) are federally-funded community health clinics that provide comprehensive care to underserved patients and areas. These clinics are an important source of healthcare for millions of people and represent an opportunity to offer eye care services to the medically underserved community. The purpose of this study was to determine whether FQHCs in Florida are currently offering eye care services, where they are available, and what services are being offered.
Methods :
A full list of Florida FQHCs was obtained from the United States Health Resources & Services Administration database, including FQHC address and phone number. School-based health centers and non-ophthalmic specialty care health centers were excluded. Each FQHC was called by phone and asked whether eye care services are offered at this location. If eye care services are offered, follow up questions included: i) what services are offered ii) whether services are provided by optometrists or ophthalmologists, iii) how often these services are offered, and iv) whether pediatric eye and vision services are available. Maps were made with ArcGIS Online.
Results :
Of the 518 FQHCs called, 27 clinics (5.2%) endorsed that eye care services are offered at their locations. Reported services included vision exams, glasses prescriptions, and dilated eye exams. Services were rendered by optometrists at all (100%) of the clinics that offered eye care services; none of the clinics reported provision of care by ophthalmologists. The frequency at which eye care services were offered at each clinic varied considerably, ranging from every weekday to twice a month. Nineteen clinics (74%) offered pediatric eye care and vision services.
Conclusions :
Our result of 5.2% differs drastically from the nationally reported 25% of FQHCs that offer eye care services. FQHCs have been proposed as potential conduits for bringing primary eye care to underserved communities, and these results demonstrate that they are severely underutilized for this purpose in the state of Florida. This disparity is concerning because it may represent an overestimation of resources available to underserved communities, resulting in a potentially overlooked gap in care. These findings support the need to investigate interventions and policies to increase access and equity in eye care services for underserved communities.
This abstract was presented at the 2024 ARVO Annual Meeting, held in Seattle, WA, May 5-9, 2024.