VEW 2022: The dry eye spa experience

Janelle Davison, OD, founder and clinical director of Brilliant Eyes Vision Center and Premier Dry Eye Spa in Georgia, sat down with Optometry Times® editor Kassi Jackson to share hightlights from her presentation, "Intersection of dry eye and beauty: design, build and brand a profitable dry eye spa," which she presented during this year's Vision Expo West in Las Vegas.

This transcript has been lightly edited for clarity:

Jackson:

Hi everyone, I’m joined today by Dr. Janelle Davison, founder and clinical director of Brilliant Eyes Vision Center and Premier Dry Eye Spa in Georgia.

She is here to share highlights from her discussion titled, Intersection of dry eye and beauty: design, build and brand a profitable dry eye spa, which she is presenting during this year’s Vision Expo West in Las Vegas.

Thank you for being here, Dr. Davison.

Davison:

Thank you for having me, I'm so excited.

Jackson:

Yes, so let's just dive right into it, would you please share with us the key takeaways from your presentation?

Davison:

So yeah, I totally love this presentation. I got into dry eye in my practice in 2018, and I made my dry experience unique by building a dry eye spa.

And so the key takeaways from this lecture is just really defining what a dry eye spa is: that it's a little extension from a regular dry clinic, we're maintaining the patient's overall eye health, addressing their discomfort secondary to dry eye, but also finding a space for them to feel safe, relaxed, and rejuvenated when they leave.

And so what you learn is how to be able to create the ambiance, that environment, what it's going to take to be able to do that for us. Inventory management, how to outfit the room, and then also how to tie into what we already know clinically about dry eye and mix that with a little bit of beauty to give the patients a very unique experience that they may not have anywhere else with some other providers in the area.

Jackson:

Why is this important to discuss?

Davison:

It's important to discuss because I've had a lot of colleagues who are so interested in just finding a niche, and then just kind of rejuvenate how they're practicing every day. And so eye spa is fun, very intriguing for patients.

And so I get a lot of colleagues are like, "Hey, Doc, how did you do this? What did you do? What were your steps? What was the blueprint?"

I think this lecture is going to help outline how dry eye can easily mesh with aesthetics and beauty, as well. And then how to be able to create that ambiance very seamlessly into private practice, and just know that it won't disrupt your everyday flow of clinical care.

Jackson:

What do you hope the audience takes away from this discussion?

Davison:

[That the audience] takes away thisis easy to do, [and] that a lot of things that I'm going to talk about, in reality, you're already doing in clinical practice, you're already addressing low lying lids...in clinical practice. You're already seeing patients who are having blurry vision and want to be able to have options outside of multifocal contact lenses.

You're already addressing dry eye, why not put a little spin on it to make it very unique, very relaxing, and a memorable experience for patients?

Jackson:

What does a dry eye spa mean for patients?

Davison:

So a dry eye spa by means that not only are we going to address their dry eye issues and concerns, but we're going to get to the root cause of it.

I have a lot of patients who are referred to me who've been treated kind of aimlessly, you know, we're trying different things here and there, but not really dug down and figured out what the root cause of the issue is.

And then once we determine that set of customized treatment plan, and then provide that treatment in the space that is safe, that is relaxing, but like I said, memorable for the patient. And it's a great revenue generator.

And a great way to kind of refresh practicing optometry. Most of us have been doing this for a while—me 16 years—and so sometimes when you find a new way to do something that we've been doing, it just makes the day more refreshing and makes you eager to want to come to work.

Jackson:

Well it sounds like a very fun presentation and a very fun part of practice. So is there anything that we didn't discuss that you'd like to touch on?

Davison:

Just touch on that most of us have already doing this every day and I'm going to show you—and have shown you—during the lecture that this is something that you're already doing. It's very simple and easy for you to do and patients that are be very happy and appreciative when you implement these services into your practice.