Eyeglass prescription orders are typically accomplished by filling out a form that requires completing an average minimum of 20 discrete blanks or fields and may have up to 75 fields or more depending on the special requirements of the order. The information contained in an eyeglass prescription order can be classified into the following several groups.
The actual prescription—A patient's refractive powers.
Patient information—Name, plus the measurements of the patient's eyes horizontally and vertically with respect to the patient's chosen frame.
The Frame—Since most frame companies sell directly to Eye Care Professionals (ECPs), the frame is frequently enclosed with the prescription (“Rx”) or sent later to an optical lab to process lenses for the frame. The frame must be described on the order, even if not supplied, because the lab must be able to identify customer frames if separated from the lenses in the lens production process.
A frequent problem in ordering or writing a description of an enclosed frame is encountered when entering a color, eye size, or bridge size that are not available for that particular frame. In other words, each piece of information taken separately is reasonable and valid, but taken together does not describe a product or frame that exists or is available from that particular laboratory.
Lens Product—There are hundreds of different types of lens styles, each that may come in different materials (glass, plastic, etc.), and where each material may come in different colors, coatings, and power combinations. A frequent error in eyeglass prescription ordering is specifying an unavailable lens product. That is, each separate piece of information of the lens order is valid, but taken together describes a product or lens that either is not made or is not available from the laboratory that received the order.
Lens services—There are a variety of lab-supplied services that can be added to a lens product as described above. For example, labs often provide coatings for scratch resistance, anti-reflection, mirror-reflection, or colors. Again, ECPs make mistakes when ordering because of unavailability or incompatibility with certain lens products. For example, the coating ordered may exist, but be inappropriate for a chosen lens product.
Another type of lens service provided by labs relates to edging processes (shaping for insertion into frames). A lens may be polished on the edge or ordered to a specific thickness. Again, errors in ordering occur because certain finishing features may not be available for the particular lens/frame combination selected.
All the various components of an eyeglass prescription order may indeed make sense when viewed independently, but there is an error rate of more than 25% associated with handling orders that results from incompatibility in the “inter-relationships” between the items on the order.
An eyeglass prescription order is typically completed and sent to a lab in one of two forms. The first, traditional method is to fill out blanks in a paper form, and mail or fax that form to the lab. More recently, an electronic system has been developed to permit a user (such as an optometrist, technician or other individual working with a patient) to complete an eyeglass prescription using a computer and specialized software. Such software is available from, for example, Digital Vision Inc. of Portland, Oreg.
Two types of computer or entry systems have been provided. A first, traditional computer entry system used a “prompt” style of entry. A system using this type of entry would “prompt” the user or operator to enter a lens name. Then after validating that piece, the system would ask for a material, and so on. If at some point in the “prompting” sequence the operator input is rejected for whatever reason, the operator is faced with starting over again with the whole process. This type of entry has been very unpopular in eyeglass prescription ordering because it is so time consuming and because it precipitates frequent “starting over” when errors occur.
A second form of computer entry for eyewear prescription orders employs a full screen display of fields. In this system, the user sees all, or a large subset of all, fields to be completed. Full screen form entry has been more popular because of the speed and clarity of the ordering process. The form is similar to the written form that all ECPs use in their own practices.
FIGS. 1A and 1B show an example of such a prior art order entry system. Udder this example, a user may enter a lens style in a lens style field 102 (such as tab or use page up/page down buttons through the form to select the appropriate field). The user may enter an “Alt-B” keystroke combination to cause a pop-up box 104 to be displayed which provides available choices of material, coatings and color. By using the page up or page down keys on a keyboard, the user can selectively display one of several individual choices, and select a desired choice by pressing the enter key (or the escape key to escape out of the window 104). Within the box 104, shown only are those specific combinations of lens style, material, color and coating that are available. For example, as shown, a user in this example has selected a particular style, and then may use the alt page up/page down keys to view materials available for the specified style (in this case glass “G” and plastic “P”). The user could also select a particular material, and then use the page up/page down keys to view styles available for the specified material. Only a single combination is shown at a time within the box 104.
Under such prior systems, a third of all orders placed with labs required a callback by the lab to clarify the order. For example, a prescription submitted to the lab may request green plastic lenses. However, that lab does not provide green plastic lenses and would then need to confirm with the ECP who placed the order whether the ECP wished to have clear plastic lenses or green glass lenses.
Other method's of automating portions of the eye care process have been undertaken, such as that described in U.S. Pat. No. 5,485,399. Further, some recent software systems for use with lens labs have or will likely become available, such as from the following: omics (www.omics.com), cc systems (www.opticalonline.com), optifacts (www.optifacts.com), optivision (optivisioninc.com), and vision star (visionstarllc.com). Some web-based systems have or will likely become available, such as from the following: vision web (www.visionweb.com), eyefinity (www.eyefinity.com), and e-lens (www.uncuts.com).
The headings provided herein are for convenience only and do not necessarily affect the scope or meaning of the claimed invention.
In the drawings, the same reference numbers identify identical or substantially similar elements or acts. To easily identify the discussion of any particular element or act, the most significant digit or digits in a reference number refer to the Figure number in which that element is first introduced (e.g., element 1104 is first introduced and discussed with respect to FIG. 11).