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Thomas P. Arnold, OD

Today’s Vision
Sugar Land, Texas

A 1984 graduate of the University of Houston College of Optometry, Dr. Thomas Arnold has been the owner of Today’s Vision Sugar Land since 1992. It is a very busy single-location practice with three doctors on staff, said Arnold, who also has been a member of the Laser Eye Institute of Houston’s board and an adjunct faculty member at UH’s College of Optometry.

There are many things that are important to running a large optometry practice today, but when it comes to managing the performance of his office and staff there are only a couple that really stand out for Arnold: timely access to relevant operational data at the touch of his fingertips.

This is especially critical when the practice sets specific goals and needs to track its progress against those targets. “I’m sure you are familiar with the adage that if you don’t measure it, you don’t do it,” he said. “But if you measure it, you can change it; if you measure it, you can affect it,” he added, noting that no one loses weight without weighing themselves to chart their progress.

So, in evaluating office dashboard programs, timely access and an easy-to-read presentation of the data are the factors he uses in selecting a solution. Arnold has been using GPN’s The EDGE office dashboard solution for at least seven years, and he recently tested a version of EDGEPro, an enhanced version of The EDGE analysis software.

In his experience with The EDGE dashboard, Arnold said he likes that the presentation format is easy to understand and requires very few clicks to drill down into deeper analysis within the reports, without needing to access this data via layers of connected spreadsheets. “It drives me crazy to have to click here, and click here and then click there,” he said. “[With The EDGE], with two clicks or maybe three clicks you are looking at whatever data you want. It’s a very clean interface, and it works independently of your office management system.”

In addition, he said, The EDGE solution doesn’t require changes to the way data is entered in the practice’s daily operations; The EDGE pulls the “data you already have.”

Another feature of The EDGE and EDGEPro solutions is the ability for the practice to look at a wide range of performance benchmarks. Arnold said, one of the features allows the user “in whatever timeframe you are looking at” to hit a “compare” button that will run the data to create a relevant comparison to the timeframe chosen by the user.

Arnold also likes to have the option to track different aspects of the practice on a daily basis, and noted that The EDGE offers strong metrics for a variety of performance categories, such as what the cost of goods should be, forecasts for frame turnover, average frame sale, and add-on sales, among other metrics.

There are more functions like this with the expanded EDGEPro platform, including features highlighting lost revenue opportunities, upgrades to the functionality for benchmarking, tracking, and spotlighting the relationships between products, services and fees. EDGEPro also has improved mobile accessibility, which permits users to view their data from any hand-held device.

On a broader aspect, GPN holds twice-a-year customer meetings that feature informative focus groups and role-playing exercises, Arnold said. “They bring a lot of value to this whole thing. When I talk to people about it, I say ‘It’s like having a partner with no drama,’” he said.