Ophthalmology's characteristics as a specialty, from an information science viewpoint.

Ophthalmology is the medical specialty most oriented toward outpatient care. Hospitalization of eye patients is necessary in only a small percentage of cases requiring surgery. Many more ophthalmologic patients have non-surgical diseases, and even more have no disease, but require preventive check-ups and eyeglasses for benign refractive conditions. Many patients are self-referred or referred non-specifically by other physicians. Ophthalmologic practice is like primary care, with a large throughput of patients, many of whom are normal. The ophthalmologist uses sophisticated instruments and does lengthy and difficult examinations in the private office, when gathering data on which to base medical judgments in the search for patients with serious disease. Data gathering is seldom delegated to distant laboratories. Getting medical information into a computer system poses serious problems that limit the present availability of computerized medical record keeping systems.