Emerging Trends in Optometric Clinical Programs Administration

• Quality assurance, risk management, compliance and accreditation of clinical facilities will become increasingly important.
• There will be more proactive risk management and patient safety initiatives.
• Quality of care assessment and peer review using published clinical practice guidelines as the benchmark will become the standard of assessment.
• There will be more collaboration with community health care programs and an increased awareness of public health needs.
• College affiliated clinical organizations will realize performance improvements in partnering with health center administrations in addressing common clinical practice and administrative issues by sharing of evidence-based best practices and then adapting them to their local environments.
• Patient services revenue management from patient registration to coding and documentation to submission of charges to net collections will become increasingly important.
• Comprehensive marketing programs consisting of public relations, advertising and direct sales will be essential to succeed in a competitive health care market.
• Incentive-based compensation will become commonplace for attending staff and clinical administrators.
• Accreditation groups and funding sources will set standards relating to academically affiliated clinical programs addressing public health needs.