Eyes on the Prize: Increasing access to vision care for CPS students

I currently serve as a Vision Promoter on the South Side of Chicago at the Illinois Eye Institute at Princeton Elementary. As a Vision Promoter, one of my top priorities is to work with parents and teachers to ensure Chicago Public School students have access to affordable primary eye care services throughout their academic careers. Consequently, a large part of my service at Princeton focuses on disease management and prevention strategies. IEI at Princeton is a unique program in that our team has a longitudinal approach to eye care. We offer patients an array of services for those in need of follow up treatment after their initial exam, including, but not limited to: vision therapy, prescription adjustments, in-depth testing for visual information processing disorders, and ocular health management. As an NHC Chicago member, it is my responsibility to track clinic referrals and keep families informed about their options for long-term vision services.

The referral process that I manage is a robust operation. The optometrists at Princeton regularly recommend follow-up treatment to the patients at our clinic. On any given day, upwards of 40-50 children have comprehensive eye exams - with a number of those patients receiving referrals for additional care. We average around 175+ referrals a month. Due to the nature of our program, the majority of patients seen at our clinic actually come on school field trips without their parents. Our team does its best to provide students with documentation to bring home, but nonetheless, ensuring that guardians are aware of their child's vision issues is an on-going challenge. My primary responsibility is thus to contact parents and get them to schedule follow up exams if necessary. 

It can be challenging work to get families to promptly address the eye care needs of their child, especially when the student requires on-going treatment. Many parents in the community I serve work during clinic hours, lack adequate transportation, change phone numbers regularly, or are concerned follow-up care will be cost prohibitive (even though Princeton provides services regardless of ability to pay). I do my best to schedule as many patients as I can, and I feel proud each time a child comes back to the clinic. As a result of NHC contribution of service, a number of Chicago youth have received specialty care for serious issues, therapy to improve visual disorders, new glasses, and much more. 

NHC members play a vital role at the Princeton clinic. We try to improve the overall well being of the Chicago youth community by being a source for vision services that families can solicit from the time their children are toddlers all the way through high school. I hope that my NHC Chicago service will help provide more opportunity to the kids of this great city.

This blog post was written by Michael Brodsky.

Michael serves as a Vision Promoter at Illinois Eye Institute.