The Glaucoma Guidelines Application Project is a two-year research project aimed to test the implementation of the most recent and authoritative international guidelines on glaucoma.
This research is part of the project "Chronic eye diseases: implementation of guidelines and impact assessment of an integrated network for diagnostics, treatment and follow-up", co-funded by  Regione Emilia-Romagna, Italy.
 
The Health Authority of Parma, the Health Authority of Modena, and Parma University Hospital built three research teams, all coordinated by Dr. Stefano Gandolfi, MD, Ph.D., Head of the Eye Clinic of Parma. Parma will mainly deal with cataract, Modena with glaucoma.

Project steps
 
1. Choosing the recommendations to test (first year, ended June 2011) 
Four international guidelines were chosen by the leading group (see below). 
A multidisciplinary panel, including ophthalmologists, a general practitioner, orthoptics, methodologists, an adiministrator, patients and caregivers, discussed the guidelines and chose three recommendations as the most important for good clinical practice in glaucoma and ocular hypertension:
The recommendations addressed the following questions:
       A - Which tests have to be offered before diagnosis?
       B - Which diagnostic tools should be used at monitoring visits, and at what intervals should patients be offered monitoring?
       C - How to give relevant information to patients about diagnosis and management of glaucoma and ocular hypertension?
To enable all panel members to participate actively, training sessions and discussion groups were held for a group of patients and caregivers in collaboration with the Competent Citizen Laboratory of the Health Authority of Modena.
Click below to download the reccomendations:

2. Testing three recommendations (second year) 
The three selected recommendations are being tested in the District of Sassuolo (Modena).
A local multidisciplinary group, including healthcare professionals, patients, and caregivers, has been set in order to identify barriers to implementation and to plan and carry out any interventions to implement locally the recommendations.
At the end of the study period we will measure whether and to what extent adherence to the recommendations is achieved and we will attempt to identify the causes of successes and failures.
The study design is 'prospective experimental implementation study' (case study).