Sir,We write to you as a continuation of the work that we have been doing in standardizing eye bank facilities at our institute. After discussing about the quality indicators in eye bank, we would like to add to the thoughts of Prajna in discussing about the importance of “Good Quality” in Eye Banks.[12] Prajna, in his guest editorial, discussed how The Eye Bank Association of India has grown and created awareness about eye donation.[2] He also mentions about the operational standards and practices, and we would like to give our inputs for the same.[2]The Government of India has now authorized certified eye bank technicians to do eye retrieval under Human Organ Transplant Act, 1994.[3] However, there are no clear-cut guidelines on how to assess their retrieval capabilities. We have been working on an assessment tool, which can be used for their assessment. This is based on the recommendations by Honavar[4] and Farooqui et al.,[5] which mention modifications of the Ophthalmology Surgical Competency Assessment Rubric (OSCAR) for assessing trainees as an educational tool. We devised a new rubric-Rubric for Assessment of Eyecare Professionals for Eye Retrieval (RAEPER) and have tried to implement it as a pilot study assessing eye bank technicians’ eye retrieval capabilities [Fig. 1a–c].
Figure 1(a)
(a) Rubric for assessment of eye care professionals for eye retrieval
Figure 1(c)
(c) Rubric for assessment of eye care professionals for eye retrieval
(a) Rubric for assessment of eye care professionals for eye retrieval(b) Rubric for assessment of eye care professionals for eye retrieval(c) Rubric for assessment of eye care professionals for eye retrievalA total of six technicians, with a minimum experience of 20 independent In Situ Corneoscleral rim retrievals, enrolled as trainees. One-day workshop comprising of didactic lectures, educational videos, and eye retrieval assessment was conducted. The assessment, which was performed on human eyes, was done by two independent trainers (cornea consultants who have been involved with training fellows and well versed with OSCAR).It was seen that both the trainer's scores matched closely in the following skills-surgical hand scrubbing (P = 0.317), gloving (P = 0.131), and manual dexterity (P = 0.615). There was a discrepancy between both scores in incision through sclera (P = 0.43), scissor technique (P = 0.221), and leakage of vitreous (P = 0.048).From this exercise, we tried to validate our assessment tool. We feel that RAEPER is useful to develop training guidelines, identifying gaps and eventually improving eye retrieval process. In addition, this rubric can be used to assess eye bank technicians, residents, fellows, or eye bank personnel certified and assigned with the duty of eye retrieval. Similarly, the trainer can be an Eye Bank manager, senior technician or an ophthalmologist who has experience in eye retrieval process, and not just cornea surgeons. We have started a multicentric study using this tool, but till the results are awaited, we would like to encourage other readers to start using RAEPER in their Eye Banks.
Figure 1(a)
Figure 1(c)