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VisualWorks

Spectacles on an eye chart

VisualWorks assists in the management and analysis of community visual screening programmes for children (pre-school and primary one), enabling scheduling of clinics, automated production of invitation and result letters, tracking of children with suspected visual defects and production of end-of-year statistics.

VisualWorks Benefits

VisualWorks provides the following benefits

  • Reduces the organisational burden on Orthoptists
  • Helps ensure that maximum test coverage is achieved
  • Minimises the administrative cost of providing a community visual screening programme
  • Imports details of suitably-aged children from CHI data extract, minimising data entry
Visual Works Screenshot

(All data shown is fictitious)

NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde

A laptop surrounded by spectacles and eye test charts

Prior to 2006, there was no complete pre-school vision screening programme available in the whole of the Greater Glasgow area.

In 2006, NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde implemented a new large-scale pre-school vision screening programme covering the whole of the Greater Glasgow area, based on recommendations in the UK National Screening Committee Child Health Sub-Group Report on Vision Screening (May 2005) and the Scottish Executive Health Department guidance on implementation of Health for All Children 4 in Scotland (April 2005) that all children should be screened by an Orthoptist for visual impairment between four and five years of age.

A child undergoing Visual Screening

The screening programme is intended to detect reduced visual acuity, as evidence indicates that early screening and treatment can reduce the incidence of permanent loss of vision.

NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde implemented VisualWorks in 2006 as part of the wider implementation of their new pre-school vision screening programme in the Greater Glasgow area, screening almost 11,000 pre-school children from just over 15,000 (representing approximately 70% coverage) in the first year of the programme (2006/2007). In the 2007/2008 school year the coverage improved to almost 74%, with almost 80% of screened children screened in a nursery setting.

NHS Dumfries and Galloway

A child undergoing Visual Screening

NHS Dumfries and Galloway implemented VisualWorks in 1999, after evaluating the product and identifying that the implementation of VisualWorks would produce significant time savings in the following areas:

  • Automatic assignment of pre-school children to clinic locations based on the postcode of each child’s home address, avoiding time-consuming manual assignment of individual children to clinic locations
  • Automatic assignment of children to scheduled clinics based on date of birth and whether the child has already been tested, saving time by reducing the need for individual children to be manually selected for clinics
  • Automatic generation of standard letters and clinic lists, avoiding the administrative burden of creating these documents manually
  • Assignment of Primary One children to the CMO or Orthoptist list based on pre-school test results

Clients of VisualWorks

Map of Scotland, pinpointing VisualWorks deployments

NHS Ayrshire and Arran

NHS Ayrshire and Arran implemented VisualWorks in 1998.

NHS Dumfries and Galloway

NHS Dumfries and Galloway implemented VisualWorks in 1999.

NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde

NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde implemented VisualWorks in 2006. Prior to 2006, there was no complete pre-school vision screening programme available in the whole of the Greater Glasgow area.

NHS Highland

NHS Highland implemented VisualWorks in 2007.