Aged Care Optometrist Visit Checklist for Facility Managers

TL;DR

A well-prepared aged care optometrist visit takes 8–12 minutes per resident and produces a clean clinical report that drops straight into your care plan. A poorly prepared visit takes twice as long and produces incomplete records. This checklist gives you the seven things to do *before* the optometrist arrives, the four things to do *during* the visit, and the three things to do *after* — so the visit runs to time and your accreditation evidence is in good shape.

On this page

Before the visit — seven steps

1. Build the visit list (2 weeks out)

Pull every resident due for an annual review, plus any resident with:

Mark each resident as annual recall, diabetic screening, post-op, or new complaint. Send the list to the optometry provider so they can plan time per resident.

2. Capture consent (1 week out)

For every resident on the list, confirm:

Use your facility's standard consent template; the optometry provider should be able to integrate with your existing process.

3. Print medication lists (3 days out)

A current Webster or eMR medication list per resident, flagging:

These influence the eye examination directly.

4. Locate glasses (2 days out)

For every resident on the list, locate their current glasses (often residents have several pairs scattered). Label or rubber-band the spare pair so the optometrist can measure them. See Spectacle loss in aged care: prevention and replacement for a benchmark on how to set up an ongoing inventory.

5. Notify families and POAs (1 week out)

A short note advising:

6. Prepare the room (morning of)

A quiet, well-lit room with:

For bed-bound residents, the optometrist comes to the bedside.

7. Brief the floor team (morning of)

A two-minute handover so the AINs and ENs on shift know:

During the visit — four things

1. A named contact — one RN or care coordinator is the optometrist's point of contact for the day. This prevents the optometrist running around looking for keys, charts or consent forms.

2. Resident attendance support — for residents with dementia, a familiar AIN attending the examination significantly reduces agitation and improves the quality of the data captured. See Sundowning and vision: what care staff need to know for handling tips.

3. Real-time flagging of urgent issues — if the optometrist flags an urgent finding (e.g. neovascular AMD, suspicious optic disc, retinal detachment) during the visit, the named contact arranges immediate GP communication and onward referral.

4. End-of-visit huddle — five minutes at the end of the rotation, the optometrist and the named contact run through every resident seen: dispense decisions, referrals, follow-up timing. This is the most efficient time to clarify anything ambiguous.

After the visit — three things

1. Integrate the report into the care plan — within one business day of receiving the written report, the registered nurse responsible for each resident enters the relevant findings, glasses recommendations and follow-up dates into the care plan. This is the evidence the Aged Care Quality Standards expect to see.

2. Family / POA communication — confirm by email that the report has been sent and that any new glasses orders are progressing.

3. Glasses fitting visit — once new glasses arrive (typically 2–3 weeks later), confirm the optometrist returns to fit them to each resident, label them, and update the inventory. Do not just store new glasses at reception — that is how the spectacle-loss problem starts.

Downloadable: room setup checklist

For day-of-visit use:

Documentation for accreditation

For your accreditation evidence file, retain (in line with your provider's clinical governance requirements):

For a step-by-step alignment with the Aged Care Quality Standards, see Eye health for the aged care accreditation cycle. For the broader compliance picture see our aged-care optometry service page or the Brisbane aged care coverage.

Frequently asked questions

How long should I allow per resident?

A well-prepared visit takes 8–12 minutes per resident for an annual review, plus an additional 5–10 minutes for any resident dispensing new glasses. Plan on 10 residents in a half-day session for an experienced rotation.

What happens if a resident refuses on the day?

Document the refusal. The resident is removed from the visit list for this round and re-offered at the next rotation. The optometrist supports right-to-refuse in line with consumer dignity and choice (Aged Care Quality Standard 1).

Do residents need to be fasting?

No. Comprehensive eye examinations do not require fasting or any preparation other than wearing their current glasses.

What if a resident is in their last days of life?

Vision care is generally not appropriate for residents who are actively dying. Remove them from the visit list and re-evaluate priorities with the family. The optometrist will not push.

How this guide connects to the rest of our content

Mobile optometry sits at the intersection of clinical eye care, aged care governance, and community health. The article above answers the immediate question, but most readers also need the wider picture — what the service looks like in practice, what it costs, where it runs, and how it interacts with the rest of the eye-care system. This short reference section makes those connections explicit so you can follow the trail that matters to your situation.

For families and individuals

If you are arranging eye care for an older parent or for yourself, the most useful next read is our pillar overview on what a mobile optometrist does, where we travel, and what Medicare covers. It walks through the appointment flow, glasses turnaround, and bedside delivery in a single page. From there, Booking your first mobile optometrist visit takes you through preparation step by step. If the recipient lives in a residential aged care home, the companion pillar — our aged care optometrist page — covers how facility-wide visits are scheduled and run.

For facility managers and clinical care coordinators

Facility teams usually need three things in one place: a procurement checklist, a clinical pathway, and accreditation evidence. The aged care optometrist visit checklist covers operational logistics — consent, medication interactions, room set-up, glasses inventory, and reporting. Our service hub on aged care optometry outlines clinical scope, reporting templates, reviewer credentials, and how the visit maps to the Aged Care Quality Standards. For an accreditation-cycle view, see our playbook on eye health for the aged care accreditation cycle, which is written for clinical governance audiences.

For GPs, ophthalmology rooms and community health teams

When the question is "optometry or ophthalmology?", our referrals decision guide outlines clinical scope, urgency criteria, and the shared-care pathways we use for residential aged care patients. It also covers what we report back after each visit, how we flag conditions that need urgent ophthalmology review, and how we coordinate when surgical follow-up is needed.

Related reading

For the clinical rationale behind the checklist, see how regular eye care supports falls prevention in aged care and why every resident deserves eye care.

Where we travel

Eye See You Optometry runs scheduled mobile rounds across Queensland and New South Wales, including Brisbane, Gold Coast, Sunshine Coast, Sydney and Newcastle, plus the regional centres in between. If your suburb is not listed, call us — most postcodes are covered by an existing route or can be added with two to three weeks of notice.

*Eye See You Optometry visits 184+ aged care facilities across Queensland and New South Wales. Request a sample service-level agreement and visit pack or call 0490 090 713.*