This month, owners and managers of optical labs attended the Optical Laboratories Association 2006 Meeting for three days of classes, workshops, presentations and trade show activities. Here they will have learned about new products, new and better ways of fabricating lenses and smarter ways to run their business. They will also have spent a fair amount of time, both formally and informally, discussing how they can best educate ECPs on the new products and innovations they have discovered.

Christie Walker Contributing Editor

The ECP is the gateway and sometimes the gatekeeper to the end customer, the patient. The trickle down of information on new products is painfully slow at times. From the manufacturers, to the labs, to the ECP, and finally to its intended recipient, the patient, information on new products often moves like molasses through the system.

For example, there is a new photochromic, Drivewear, created by Younger Optics and powered by Transitions. This photochromic actually darkens behind the windshield of a car; something I’ve been waiting for ever since I entered this industry. I wonder how long it will take my ECP to discover this new lens and then recommend it to me, considering I’ve been complaining about this very thing for years.

If new products don’t make it past the ECP, then what good are they? Optical labs do their best to educate their customers on new products and innovations. It’s up to ECPs to determine which products would be best for their patients and then provide their patients with recommendations based on their visual and lifestyle needs. ECPs do a disservice to their patients when they just perform an eye exam and hand out a prescription, letting them walk out the door to figure out what they should do next. Don’t be a gatekeeper, be a tour guide. Show your patients what’s new and exciting in the industry and if you do, you’ll benefit from knowing you’ve given them the opportunity to have the best vision possible