ENVISIONING THE FUTURE OF PATIENT JOURNEYS
PROJECT PARTNER
ENVISIONING THE FUTURE OF PATIENT JOURNEYS
Dr Ola Spencer, Group COO at Optegra Eye Health Care, explains how the company is embedding new technologies to improve patient care.
JOURNEYS
ESTABLISHED IN 2007, OPTEGRA EYE HEALTH
CARE (OPTEGRA) IS A LEADING INTERNATIONAL PLATFORM OF SPECIALIST OPHTHALMIC SERVICES, DEDICATED TO DELIVERING WORLD-CLASS EYE CARE.
ith a strong reputation for clinical excellence, Optegra has successfully performed over one million eye procedures, transforming the lives of patients across its 40 eye hospitals in the UK, Czech Republic, Poland, Slovakia and the Netherlands.
Alongside its private vision correction treatments – from lens replacement and laser eye surgery to implantable contact lenses – Optegra treats cataract surgery privately and through its partnership with the NHS. It also provides treatment for glaucoma and Age-Related Macular Degeneration (AMD), including Valeda, a first-ever treatment for the Dry form of AMD, bringing hope to patients for the first time.
Bringing together leading-edge research, medical expertise and stateof-the-art surgical equipment, Optegra performs over 170,000 treatments
annually, conducted by its worldrenowned ophthalmic surgeons.
Joining us from Optegra is Dr Ola Spencer, Group COO, to discuss the company’s innovations in medtech and its focus on streamlining the patient journey. To begin, Ola explains how the company is driving market leadership through innovation.
“Staying ahead of any eye care advancements across the industry is at the heart of our strategy,” says Ola.
“In order to achieve that, we’ve focused on a number of elements, including pathway standardisation.
“Across all the countries we operate in, we have developed a standardised patient pathway to ensure a consistent, high-quality experience. Whether a patient visits a facility in London or anywhere else, they will encounter the same structured journey – from their initial engagement and diagnostics
through to surgery and post-operative care.
“A key part of this approach is clinical standardisation. Every surgeon across the UK uses identical materials and surgical techniques, ensuring uniformity in care delivery. This consistency is not just about efficiency – it is fundamental to achieving exceptional clinical outcomes, enhancing patient safety and maintaining the highest standards of ophthalmic care.
“A key pillar of our strategy is the integration of digital and AI-driven healthcare solutions," says Ola. “Our transformation journey began in 2019, when we started migrating our infrastructure to the cloud and seamlessly connecting all our medical devices onto a single, integrated platform. This advancement enables our surgeons to access patient data and imaging instantly, anytime and anywhere, ensuring faster decisionmaking and enhanced clinical precision. The impact has been
profound – while many organisations still rely on printed eye scans, which offer limited functionality and diagnostic capabilities, our digitalfirst approach has unlocked real-time data analysis, AI-powered insights, and greater collaboration across our global network.
“Now we have these modes of transformation in place, we’re working on driving the value enabled for our patients and surgeons to work more effectively – for instance, by adopting
a paperless approach. We’ve now got a full patient portal that can be accessed by our patients entirely online – allowing us to be significantly more efficient, and the patient to feel more supported throughout that journey. We’re now able to conduct 25 cataract surgeries on the day, in comparison to the NHS, which does eight, which is vital in bringing down waiting lists. Our data is accessible at the same time the patient is prepped, so our surgeons have absolutely everything they need.
“I am a strong believer in adopting digital-first approaches including AI, to improve patient care, streamline healthcare pathways, and foster innovation in the ophthalmic sector.”
In order to achieve these seamless capabilities, Optegra is focusing on emerging technologies and assessing how they can enhance its existing strategy. Notably, the company is looking to AI to elevate the patient pathway.
“Our latest innovations have been focused on utilising AI to further our digitalisation initiatives,” explains Ola. “You see a lot of people talk about the benefits of AI in terms of cost reduction and back-office efficiency, but we want to see how we can drive more value for our patients and clinical teams. Therefore, we’re focusing on using AI at the forefront of the patient’s journey and follow-up appointments.
“If you think about the process of cataract surgery, every patient has
“OUR SURGEONS AND CLINICAL TEAMS ARE AT THE HEART OF EVERYTHING WE DO”
Dr Ola Spencer, Group COO at Optegra Eye Health Care
to go through a 30-minute pre op assessment with a nurse discussing their allergies, comorbidities and medications.
“Two years ago, we took that assessment out of our hospitals and replaced it with a virtual clinical team, which has helped us offer a more flexible way of working with people. Once we’ve got a referral coming in, patients will get a text message telling them that Iris, our virtual assistant, will call them. Using this software, we’ve now completed 17,000 pre op assessments (POA) in the 60+ age demographic with 99% data accuracy. We get around 1,500 POA per week, but Iris can process them without any limitations – freeing up our clinical team and getting the patient into surgery faster. Also, this provides added flexibility and convenience to patients who can complete the assessment at any time of their choosing – day or night. Iris conducted 63% of our pre-op assessments last month, and we’re excited to continue to expand
our use of it, with an excellent 95% Net Promoter Score (NPS).
“We’re now utilising AI in our follow-ups. Once you’ve had a clinical surgery, you have to have an additional assessment with an optometrist, which can be challenging for elderly patients who often need support to travel to those appointments.
“Instead, we’ve utilised Iris to call patients post-surgery, conduct the assessment and book them into their second eye surgery. This frees up about 1,000 hours for our optometrists, which helps them focus on new patient
demand, as well as allowing our patients to access surgery faster. We’ve done around 6,000 of these automated follow-ups across 12 of our 18 clinics, and we’re continuing to look for ways to leverage those capabilities further.”
With AI playing a key role in streamlining the patient journey, Optegra is now turning its attention to deploying it to address some of the industry’s most pressing problems, Ola elaborates.
“The health sector currently faces a significant challenge in attracting new generations of clinical professionals,”
notes Ola. “In the UK, this issue is particularly pronounced when examining the ratio of healthcare workers to the rapidly growing elderly population.
“We’re supporting the NHS by training junior surgeons with our AI surgery platform, trained by some of the industry leaders, and giving these medics access to high-volume cataract surgery. This platform can analyse how the junior doctors perform surgery and then develops an improvement plan, offering elements they need to focus on in terms of incisions – significantly accelerating their progress and precision.”
Ola stresses that these surgeons and clinical teams are instrumental in the implementation and development of any innovations at Optegra.
“Our surgeons and clinical teams are at the heart of everything we do,” says Ola. “When it comes to any new change initiative, we strongly believe that the surgeons are the ones who should be leading it, because they’re the ones who can best identify the areas that will drive the biggest value –for them and the patient.”
However, none of these projects would be possible without Optegra’s core value of transformation, which shapes how the company approaches any new innovations.
“Deploying high level projects while maintaining our standard of
operational excellence is always a challenge,” says Ola. “To overcome that challenge, you must ensure you’ve got the right people in the right places to drive change.
“Our digital projects aren’t IT projects, they’re business projects that sit at the centre of our strategy at an executive level. Therefore, we need blended teams to support the development of our projects – always with a consultant surgeon at the helm. Alongside that, we’ll have a clinical team to support the project, made up of optometrists and nurses. Only then will we look at the partners and the technology input that we might require.
“When it comes to any new AI initiatives, we see various challenges comprised of 10% as technology, 20% is data and 70% is change management. Prioritising transformation within your business operations and bringing teams together to shape and define a solution is fundamental to our success. Even when we shifted to a paperless environment, we needed clinical input to build it in the most efficient way, because they know how our patient pathways work best.
“We also make sure we start small when deploying new innovations, so we can test every possibility. From there, we’re able to learn quickly, clearly defining KPIs and measures before the wider rollout. With this approach, we may fail fast, but we learn even faster. After conducting so many projects, we’ve learned that you need to
“WE’VE BEEN WORKING WITH CONNEXAI FOR AROUND FIVE YEARS NOW AND IN THAT TIME, THEY’VE HELPED US FULLY CENTRALISE OUR CALL CENTRE”
understand an initiative on a granular level to drive any real change.”
While this approach is key to the company’s growth, strategic partnerships also play a significant role – particularly in the tightly connected healthcare industry.
“We learned very early on in our journey that you never achieve anything alone,” says Ola. “At Optegra, we’re within a healthcare ecosystem. When you’re within that connected environment, you need to identify key strategic partners that can align around your strategy, your ways of working and your principles. In choosing these partners we know we have to be very selective, which is why we work with ConnexAI.
“We’ve been working with ConnexAI for around five years now and in that time, they’ve helped us fully centralise our call centre. Originally, phone calls from our patients were going into hospital receptions where it could take some time to get an answer. ConnexAI
brought all of these calls into a single platform, which helps us better connect with our system. With this solution, we’ve been able to get our call resolution down from 15 minutes to 30 seconds.
“Since then, we’ve been looking at further transformations, utilising AI to enhance our patient journey, reduce manual admin workloads and optimise treatments. This has saved us so much time and transformed the patient journey in terms of driving clinical outcomes. It’s been a great partnership, and we’re looking forward to further collaboration.”
By optimising treatment, this partnership is simplifying Optegra’s approach to patient-driven care.
“At the very core of our strategy is a patient-first approach to healthcare,” says Ola. “This encompasses personalised care, transparent communication and premium medical expertise. So, we’re looking at every patient to ensure they receive the right tailored treatments that align their eye health, lifestyle and vision goals with what they need.
“This is why we’ve prioritised developing a seamless patient journey – it’s absolutely critical in providing that premium level of care for the patient. At the same time, we want to hear the patient feedback, hence a few weeks post-surgery, all our patients will receive a patient feedback form run by an external party. In 2024, across the group, we achieved a Net Promoter Score (NPS)
of 83%. If you compare that to the industry benchmark of 50 to 60%, we are miles ahead. However, we’re still vying for continuous improvement by taking patient feedback on board.
“At Optegra, we are not just performing surgeries – we are setting the future standard for ophthalmology through AI innovation, pathway standardisation and operational excellence. By leveraging technology, data, and best practices, we are improving outcomes, optimising efficiency, and delivering world-class patient care.
“We see ophthalmology becoming more predictive, personalised and technology driven – reducing preventable blindness and improving vision outcomes globally,” says Ola. “That’s what’s most fundamental in terms of where we’re heading now, and we’re putting our energy into achieving that.
“For us, that means a huge focus on enhancing AI and our diagnostic capabilities. If we can diagnose patients earlier in life, then we’ll be able to shift into a preventative and predictive eye healthcare management model, with AI playing a core role. We’re excited to continue to develop these capabilities alongside our existing sustainability targets, with emerging technologies and innovations in low carbon surgical techniques underpinning anything we do.”
Learn more about Optegra here.
Turn over for Added Value with Ola
ADDED VALUE
ESCRS
“We’re always looking for ways to promote healthcare innovation, and one way we do that is by attending conferences,” says Ola. “Once a year, we attend and present at the European Society of Cataract and Refractive Surgeons (ESCRS) congress, which showcases the latest advancements in laser and cataract surgery. I love events like this, because you get to have real discussions about reshaping vision care across the industry.”
TRAILBLAZING HEALTHCARE
“I really enjoy listening to ‘The Bleeding Edge of Digital Health’ podcast by Mike Moore,” says Ola. “This podcast spotlights innovative companies and trends in the medtech sector. It’s great to get such a comprehensive overview of what’s happening across the industry, and how healthcare is transforming.”
OLA RECOMMENDS…
“There are some great books that highlight recent developments in the industry,” says Ola. “AI in Health: A Leader’s Guide to Winning in the New Age of Intelligent Health Systems by Tom Lawry very much aligns with what we’re trying to achieve and has been so helpful in helping me understand ways we can improve outcomes for our patients.”
Connect with Ola
www.optegra.com