Telemedicine for Glaucoma: Guidelines and Recommendations

Background: Glaucoma is the leading cause of irreversible blindness worldwide. Access to glaucoma specialists is challenging and likely to become more difficult as the population ages. Introduction: Using telemedicine for glaucoma (teleglaucoma) has the potential to increase access to glaucoma care by improving efficiency and decreasing the need for long-distance travel for patients. Results: Teleglaucoma programs can be used for screening, diagnostic consultation, and long-term treatment monitoring. Key components of teleglaucoma programs include patient history, equipment, intraocular pressure measurement, pachymetry, anterior chamber imaging/gonioscopy, fundus photography, retinal nerve fiber layer imaging, medical record and imaging software, and skilled personnel. Discussion: Teleglaucoma has tremendous potential to improve patient access to high-quality cost-effective glaucoma care. Conclusions: We have reviewed some special considerations needed to address the complexity of providing guideline-concordant glaucoma care.