NEW YORK—Jobson Medical Information has announced the launch of the Ocular Health & Wellness Education Initiative, which consists of a comprehensive eResource, and a support 2-hour COPE-approved CE webinar. This initiative was created to educate eyecare professionals on ocular nutrition and wellness by providing a comprehensive eResource featuring published research, evidence-based clinical recommendations and expert-backed insights. The information is clinically relevant and applicable to practitioners with all levels of experience. In addition, the initiative provides best practices for developing a specialty in health and wellness and incorporating nutraceutical sales as a billable service not tied to managed care plans.

Chief clinical editor Julie Poteet, OD, MS, CNS, FOWNS, immediate past president, Ocular Wellness & Nutrition Society (OWNS), spearheaded the comprehensive, 70+ page Ocular Health & Wellness eResource titled “Ocular Health and Wellness: It’s Evidence Based.” Dr. Poteet is also the category editor of the Nutrition section of Review of Presbyopia and the Aging Eye. The eResource contains articles from the leaders in the field, including Dr. Neda Gioia, Dr. Kaleb Abbott, Dr. Jeffrey Anshel, Dr. Paul Bernstein, Dr. Kerry Gelb, Dr. Dorothy Hitchmoth, Dr. Paul Chous and Dr. Dennis Ruskin, among other contributing authors.

Dr. Poteet said, “A wellness revolution is occurring in health care with eye doctors poised to be at the forefront of early intervention. As the only human tissue allowing a direct, noninvasive visualization of the microvascular circulation and central nervous system, retinal evaluation and imaging allow eye doctors to identify disease risks early and recommend evidence-based interventions that can mitigate the course of disease and promote wellness. The eyes, therefore, are truly the windows to health.”

Other editorial topics covered in the eResource include: Medical Nutrition in a Clinical Practice, Can a Health Diet Affect Open-Angle Glaucoma, One Solution in the Battle Against Dry Eye: Nutrition, Omega-3 Fatty Acids and Ocular Health, How to Incorporate Nutrition into the Primary Care Practice, The Profound Impact of Sleep on Ocular Health and Carotenoids in Eye Health.

In addition, Drs. Poteet, Anshel and Gioia will present a two-hour, CE-approved webinar titled “Comprehensive Patient Care: Why Nutrition Matters Now More Than Ever (Repair the Roof Before it Starts Raining)” on Nov. 15, 2023, at 7:00 p.m. Eastern. The webinar will cover the National Eye Institute’s Age-Related Eye Disease Study (AREDS and AREDS2), which has changed the standard of care for practitioners managing the leading cause of vision loss in the developing world, macular degeneration, by showing that a nutraceutical formulation could slow the progression of this blinding disease.

The CE course will review the original AREDS and AREDS2 data and the recently published 10-year post hoc analysis of 14,000 eyes of the AREDS subjects, which showed that specific nutrients and eating patterns are associated with significantly reduced risk of disease progression. Registration is open online here.