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Background: The New Zealand Ministry of Health provides funding for the delivery of health care across regions via 20 District Health Boards. Funding includes the subsidisation of therapeutic pharmaceutical agents/drugs. The distribution of optometrists and ophthalmologists across the regions was investigated to understand the accessibility of eye care in New Zealand. Changes made to the optometrists' scope of practice in 2005 and in 2014 increased the range of drugs that suitably qualified optometrists could prescribe. Therefore, the distribution of optometrists authorised to prescribe drugs and those not authorised to prescribe drugs was also investigated.Methods: Information from the New Zealand Optometrists and Dispensing Opticians Board register and information from the Medical Council's website were used to create a database of ophthalmic practitioners and their locations. The χ2 goodness-of-fit test was carried out to determine whether the distribution of the number of practitioners across the regions was in proportion to the population of the regions.Results: Ophthalmologists were distributed across the regions in proportion to the regional population size. However, optometrists were concentrated in Auckland and other regions with high populations. Optometrists authorised to prescribe drugs comprised over 74 per cent of optometrists and were the majority of optometrists in most regions. Many of the regions with populations less than 200,000 had high population-to-practitioner ratios, indicating that they may not have sufficient numbers of ophthalmic practitioners in order to provide for the ocular needs of the community.Conclusion: Better distribution of the optometric workforce could make eye care more accessible in many regions of New Zealand. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This review presents the extent to which engagement in research and new developments in clinical practice alike have contributed to the establishment and development of the primary vision care profession in New Zealand that is Optometry. Many notable changes have occurred in the scope of practice of the profession over the past three decades and an important role of visual neuroscience, neurobiology and pharmaceuticals allowed the introduction of therapeutic prescribing responsibilities to a previously optics dominated profession. Scientific, optometric, medical and clinical research are factors leading the changes in scope of practice of Optometrists. These advancements have significantly expanded the scope of practice since Optometry training began in the 1960s, and has been supported by close working relationships with other health professionals in New Zealand. This article describes the history of Optometry in New Zealand from early practitioners, to the establishment of a degree programme at the University of Auckland. Along with undergraduate teaching, a strong tradition of vision science research has established New Zealand as a centre of internationally recognised expertise in a range of areas including myopia and visual neuroscience. The Optometry profession has developed to deliver primary eye care at a community level across the country in a range of areas of special interest. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: The optometrist's role in primary eye care is expanding to include not only diagnosis but also management and co-management of a range of eye diseases and visual disorders. This role calls for evidence-based practice, including an ability to source and reliably assess the various forms of evidence, on which eye care might be based. It is not known whether optometrists registered to practise in Australasia use high or low quality evidence as a basis for their clinical decisions. Methods: The present study addressed this question by surveying 3,589 optometrists registered to practise in Australia and New Zealand. A 16-item questionnaire was made available for completion online. Results: Responses from the 279 optometrists who completed the questionnaire (response rate 7.8 per cent) indicate that, after the patient's history, symptoms and signs, optometrists in our sample place most weight on knowledge and information gained via undergraduate and postgraduate education, including continuing education, as a basis for clinical decision-making. Conclusion: These findings highlight the need for current, critically evaluated content in optometric education and suggest that optometrists currently prefer to receive information and knowledge from an educator rather than sourcing and assessing the material independently. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: This work was conducted to investigate the uptake and release of epidermal growth factor (EGF) from hydrogel contact lenses and to determine whether the released protein would be therapeutically active in a rabbit corneal epithelial defect model of ocular trauma, prior to use in humans. Methods: The uptake and release of EGF from hydrogel contact lens materials were determined by high-pressure liquid chromatography. Contact lenses composed of vasurfilcon A or lotrafilcon A (containing silicone) were incubated in a source solution containing 0.4 ppm EGF for seven hours. To determine the kinetics of drug uptake into the contact lens matrix, drug concentration in the source solution was measured at zero, one, 60, 240 and 420 minutes. To determine the kinetics of release, loaded contact lenses were immersed in a recipient solution of phosphate-buffered saline. Therapeutic activity in vivo was investigated by placing prepared lenses on the surface of abraded corneas of New Zealand White rabbits, with abraded corneas of contralateral eyes used as controls. Control eyes were treated with contact lenses placed in saline for injection. Wound closure was assessed hourly. Results: Uptake and release of EGF were demonstrated for vasurfilcon A but not lotrafilcon A contact lens materials. The retention time of EGF released from vasurfilcon A contact lenses was similar to control EGF not exposed to contact lens polymers. The greatest adsorption of EGF into the lens material occurred within approximately 120 minutes, with a flattening of the rate of uptake thereafter. Abraded eyes in rabbits showed a significantly higher overall healing rate for EGF-treated contact lenses compared with control eyes (p < 0.0001). Conclusions: EGF can be delivered from some but not all hydrogel materials. Lens materials composed of silicone may not be useful for delivering EGF to the eye. EGF-treated contact lenses may be a useful device to facilitate healing of ocular wounds. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An introduction is presented in which the editor discusses various reports within the issue on topics including eye and vision care in children, the association between children's eye care and ethnicity, and the impact of amblyopia on monocular vision.