The authors conducted a workforce study of eye care providers (ophthalmologists, non-ophthalmic physicians, and optometrists) in the United States. Using data from a RAND survey of U.S. ophthalmologists and from publicly available datasets, the authors determined the supply of available providers, and estimated the present and future public health need for eye providers and the current level of demand. The authors then reconciled the supply of providers with present demand and need for services with future need through the year 2010. The study found an overall large surplus of eye care providers in the United States. Which type of provider will have the greatest surplus depends on whether the health care delivery system allocates patients to optometrists or to general ophthalmologists for primary care.

The authors conducted a workforce study of eye care providers (ophthalmologists, non-ophthalmic physicians, and optometrists) in the United States. Using data from a RAND survey of U.S. ophthalmologists and from publicly available datasets, the authors determined the supply of available providers, and estimated the present and future public health need for eye providers and the current level of demand. The authors then reconciled the supply of providers with present demand and need for services with future need through the year 2010. The study found an overall large surplus of eye care providers in the United States. Which type of provider will have the greatest surplus depends on whether the health care delivery system allocates patients to optometrists or to general ophthalmologists for primary care.

The present evaluation of quality of life for patients with age-related macular degeneration (AMD) was designed to respond to three specific questions posed by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS): 1. What is the status of current methods of measuring quality of life of individuals with AMD?1.1. What QoL measurement methods have been used in the AMD population and in those with visual disabilities from AMD (e.g., self-reporting, proxy reporting, measuring performance, etc.)?1.2. Have these QoL measuring methods been used across other eye disease populations?1.3. What are the psychometric properties of these methods (e.g., reliability, validity, responsiveness, etc.)?2. What are other factors that may influence responses using these methods?3. How do these QoL measurement methods relate to traditional outcome measures (e.g., visual acuity, contrast, etc.)?In performing this assessment related to AMD and health-related quality of life, we chose to focus on those methods and instruments that have been used in AMD populations. Thus, the instruments considered under Question 1b are a subset of the instruments considered under Question 1a, not vice versa. In other words, while there are many instruments that have been used for eye diseases other than AMD, if they have not also been used for AMD they were not included in this report. Conversely, for those instruments that have been used in patients with AMD, applications to patients with other types of eye disease were also of interest. Accordingly, our search and inclusion strategies (described below) were first focused toward attempting to find and include all articles pertaining to patients with AMD, and then in finding applications of these instruments outside of AMD. In the following section, we describe the general methods of this assessment.

On the basis of an analysis of the supply of and demand for orthopedic surgeons, the authors projected that there will be 21,134 full-time-equivalent orthopedists in the year 2010 if training continues at current levels. They estimated a demand-based requirement of 17,012 full-time-equivalent orthopedic surgeons, indicating a surplus of 4122 full-time equivalents. In terms of orhtopedist-to-population ratios, they estimated that there will be 7.5 full-time-equivalent orthopedists per 100,000 population in 2010 compared with a demand-based requirement of 6.0 full-time equivalents. However, they did not include estimates of the demand for orthopedic surgeons as assistants in the operating room in the model. If an assistant orthopedic surgeon is required for all procedures, an additional 3906 full-time-equivalent orthopedists would be demanded, thus eliminating the surplus. The demand for an assistant orthopedic surgeon in only half of the procedures would still lead to a sizable reduction in the surplus.