WaterInnovations™ Technology

Dr. Glover 
So the beautiful thing about being an optometrist is that we encounter all walks of life. Every day, someone is coming into our practice with a different background, with a different love, with a different view on things. And the cool thing that I love about the WaterInnovations technology is that it allows me to prescribe a daily option or reusable option. Now, my practice, I fit about 70% of my patients in a daily contact lens. However, the average for patients out there when it comes to contact lens, still two-thirds of those patients are in a reusable contact lens. How are you navigating this conversation in your practice? How are you fitting the right contact lens per that patient? What does that dialogue look like, Britt?

Dr. Gustafson 
Right. That's a great question. I fit the vast majority of my patients into single-use lenses, but not 100%. So I still have patients that want or need a reusable technology, and I so appreciate that Alcon recognize that segment of the market. I think over the past few years, we've all seen a lot of growth in the daily disposable segment, but Alcon recognized a lot of patients are still in reusable lenses. So, I like to chat with my patient, identify lifestyle factors, how they're wearing experience is going, and what I can do to optimize that. And for about 75% of my patients, that means a single-use lens. But there's still 25% of my practice that are patients using reusable lenses, and now I'm excited to offer them the technology that Alcon's offering in the WaterInnovations portfolio. I always think of contact lenses as my calling card. I know that's going to reflect upon me in how my patients see me and perceive my office. So I want them to have different options within the Alcon portfolio gives me that leeway to be confident in making that recommendation to patients.

Dr. Glover 
Yeah, I love that you've giving them the options. You're meeting the patient where they're at.

In my practice, when the patient first walks into my exam lane, I have something that I call the two-minute drill where essentially I just talk to them about their lifestyle, about what they're doing for the day, what they're doing for the weekend. I don't talk anything eye care related, but it really opens up the door to opportunity to prescribe for the patients.

Now, Selena, I know you have this bespoke practice. I can't stop talking about it. I just love the name and it just makes me feel a certain kind of way. I feel good when I say that, but I'm curious to know how are you navigating this conversation and educating your patients and prescribing solutions with these different modalities that are at our fingertips?

Dr. McGee 
Well, it's the bespoke experience, right? So, it's customized to the patient. And for a new wearer, I don't really give them an option other than a single use lens. Because for a new wearer, there's a lot of stress that goes into that. If you lose a lens or it washes down a sink or you tear one, not a big deal if you have a whole plethora of lenses in your daily disposable box and so I like to just take away one more complication when I can. When you look at new wearers, 54% are actually fit in a reusable lens. So I think there's a lot of opportunity there because patients tend to stay where you put them initially. And so I like offering that to my patients initially. And what I like about the WaterInnovations technology in Alcon's portfolio is I fit a lot of Dailies Total 1, I already know that technology, I understand it, but when I can apply that to a reusable lens, now I have that in my armamentarium too. So if a patient's in an older technology that's reusable, I can still give them innovation and technology that they've come to expect inside our practice.

Dr. Glover 
Yeah, I mean, the cool thing about this portfolio is that whether they want a daily contact lens or reusable contact lens, we have a resource at our fingertips. And to me, that's a game changer because again, taking it back to the top of the conversation, I want to be that hero. I want to make sure that that patient has everything they need to be successful with their eyes.