Key takeaways:

• Most ophthalmologists who prescribed home tonometry said it influenced clinical management and increased their confidence.
• Patients and doctors named financial cost as the biggest barrier to use.

Home tonometry devices were linked to decreased patient anxiety and increased doctor confidence, although financial cost and skepticism about reliability remain major barriers, according to data published in the Journal of Glaucoma.

“While the potential of [home tonometry] is evident, this technology has not been broadly integrated into clinical practices, despite its conception dating back over half a century,” Jeffrey Liu, MD, of the department of ophthalmology at Duke University Medical Center, and colleagues wrote. “The limited adoption of [home tonometry] suggests that barriers to its implementation may exist, but this notion has not been thoroughly explored.”

Home tonometry devices were linked to decreased patient anxiety and increased doctor confidence, although financial cost and skepticism about reliability remain major barriers.

At the time of writing, the only FDA-approved devices for this purpose are iCare Home and iCare Home2 (iCare Oy).

To learn more about how patients with glaucoma and ophthalmologists feel about these devices, Liu and colleagues conducted two surveys.

Read more: At-home IOP-measuring device decreased anxiety, increased confidence

Source: Healio