Department of Ophthalmology

Senior physician: Petr Novák, MD

 

Activities of the Department:

  • Out-patient therapeutic and preventive ophthalmological care of patients of H+ and Homolka Premium Care programmes, foreign nationals, employees and other patients
  • Consulting services provided to both outpatients and inpatients from different hospital departments (primarily neurology, neurosurgery, cardiology, anaesthesiology and reanimation and internal medicine)
  • Specialized examinations of patients referred from external ophthalmologists and other specialists
  • Outpatient surgery - cataract surgery, anterior eye segment and glaucoma surgery, eye-lid surgery and surgery of surrounding tissues (currently more than 99% of cataract surgeries are done in an outpatient setting)
  • Inpatient surgical procedures are performed for corneal transplantation and certain cataract surgeries (in patients from remote regions and in severely ill patients); for this purpose, the Department uses beds in the ENT Department and the Department of Internal Medicine
  • Paid surgeries (refractive clear lens extractions, implantation of phakic lenses, astigmatism corrections)

 

Organizational units of the Department

The Department of Ophthalmology has an outpatient unit and operating room; it has no inpatient ward. If need be, the patients stay in the ENT Department or the Department of Internal Medicine. The Department is managed by the senior physician and independently working physicians in a total of four medical offices.

Changes in 2017

The year of 2017 had not seen any investments into the medical instruments in the OR and technical equipment of the Department. Despite this fact, the Department managed to maintain the trend of long-term stabilisation of cataract surgeries and the number of transplantations. Commercial refractive surgeries – lens extraction and implantation of a monofocal or multifocal implants – are on the decrease. Patients were still interested in the possibility to pay an additional fee for the implantation of an above-standard lens within the “economically more demanding treatment option” (implantation of toric and multifocal lenses within cataract surgery covered by health insurance companies) that was cancelled in 2013

Educational and other specialized activities

Physicians of the Department are members of the Ophthalmological Society and the Czech Society of Refractive and Cataract Surgery and participate both actively and passively in workshops, congresses and other events of the Societies. In 2016, the physicians participated in postgraduate courses both at home and abroad (the Lion´s Club Educational Centre, international cataract surgery course) and had a number of presentations at ophthalmological congresses and specialized ophthalmological workshops.

Development plan for 2018:

  • Provision of information to specialists on treatment possibilities in the Department of Ophthalmology, either covered by health insurance companies or provided in the form of commercial care
  • Coping with competitive conditions in the medical market within a so-called economically more demanding options of healthcare
  • Raising awareness about procedures performed in our Department and strengthening its position among other ophthalmology facilities
  • Further extension of the range and increase in the overall number of commercial intraocular interventions
  • The Department has complied so far with the highest standards of surgical treatment of the anterior eye segment; however, it is imperative that medical equipment be gradually replaced
  • A new Optical coherence tomography (OCT) device was purchased for CZK 1.5 million for the purpose of timely diagnosing of macular lesions (delivery planned in 02/2018)
  • Continued cooperation with clinical ophthalmological facilities in Prague
  • Workshops under the auspices of the Department of Ophthalmology, workshops organized by the Association of Nurses, the Lion´s Club Educational Centre in the Czech Republic and the Czech Society of Refractive and Cataract Surgery
  • It will be necessary to address the lack of space in the Department in the near future