Kiwi born and bred health intelligence and eye care referral company CatTrax is poised to sign partnership agreements with two of our leading eye disease patient support charities, Macular Degeneration New Zealand (MDNZ) and Glaucoma New Zealand (GNZ).
The agreements are completely free for the charities to ensure any glaucoma or macular degeneration suspects or patients are referred to them for support as soon as they are referred for treatment by an optometrist or ophthalmologist using the CatTrax system.
“We developed CatTrax to improve eye care in New Zealand and that’s still the primary goal; to collect and share data to improve outcomes. The way to do that is to improve efficiencies for all eye care providers,” said co-founder and consultant ophthalmologist Dr James McKelvie.
Partnering with MDNZ and GNZ will improve patient education, provide valuable support networks, enhance patient outcomes and help improve quality of life for patients. All of these benefits will in turn reduce the burden on district health boards, he said. “It’s beneficial for all eye health providers and organisations to work together and CatTrax has been designed to make that happen.”
Since starting life as a cataract referral system in the Waikato, CatTrax is now being rolled out nationwide. It is in the process of deploying in the Auckland region and to several other DHBs, a move delayed only by the pandemic. CatTrax also includes a new contact tracing service* that is being provided free of charge to all eye care professionals across the country.
