How to Use OptoGuide™
Workflow first. Disease pages second.
Start with the patient presentation, then follow the workflow. Use disease and therapeutics pages after the pathway is clear.
Start with Clinical Workflows
Start with the patient presentation and choose the relevant clinical workflow. This is the fastest way to move from red eye, headache, anisocoria, flashes and floaters, diplopia, or another presentation into a structured pathway.
Use Ocular Diseases to Confirm and Act
Use disease pages after the workflow has narrowed the pattern. Disease pages support confirmation, differentials, escalation framing, and next-step management.
Use Therapeutics After the Pathway Is Clear
Use Therapeutics after the clinical pathway is clear and you know what treatment options you need to review. It is there to support dosing, safety, and PBS guidance.
Generate Prescriptions or Referrals After Clinical Judgement
Generate prescribing or referral support after you have reviewed the findings clinically and made the management decision. These tools support execution, not the decision itself.
See a full workflow, end to end
The clinical workflow walkthroughs follow one presentation — a painful red eye, flashes and floaters, diplopia, or a conjunctivitis you would treat — all the way through recognition, management, prescribing, and referral, with a screenshot of each step.
Want the detail on every tool?
The in-app Help & FAQ has a short how-to for every module and answers to common questions — from prescribing access to the binocular Esterman driving workflow.
Common questions
What order am I meant to use OptoGuide in?
Start with the patient presentation. The intended spine is Disease → Drug → Prescription → PDF, extended by the referral path Symptom → Disease → Management → Refer → Doctor → Generate → Copy.
In practice: use Triage/Clinical Workflows first, confirm on the Disease page, use Therapeutics when treatment is clear, then generate a prescription or referral. Workflow first, disease pages second.
Is OptoGuide a diagnosis tool or symptom checker?
No. OptoGuide is a deterministic, rule-based clinical workflow tool. It supports recognition, triage, don’t-miss framing, next-step guidance, and prescribing/referral execution.
It is not a diagnostic authority, a probabilistic decision engine, or a symptom checker, and it does not replace your clinical judgement.
How do I interpret a binocular Esterman visual field for driving?
Open Fitness to Drive and use the binocular Esterman checker. Pick the driver’s jurisdiction and enter the test date and details first — the copy report stays disabled until those are set.
On the 120-point grid, tap the points the patient missed. The deterministic engine then works through horizontal extent, the central missed-point / adjoining-cluster screen, reliability (fixation and false positives), and the private vs commercial pathway, and gives you a clause-transparent result you can copy.
The exact pass/refer thresholds, the reliability limits, and the state-by-state differences in the optometrist’s role and forms are shown in the module and its Reference tab — Help intentionally does not repeat those numbers so they can never drift from the tool.
The checker interprets manual, clinician-entered results only. Roving fixation or a non-standard/native device grid forces manual review, and commercial defects are never returned as unconditional.
Who is allowed to generate prescriptions in OptoGuide?
Live prescribing requires the full clinical gate: current AHPRA registration, a prescriber number, therapeutic endorsement, and the prescriber declaration.
Active in-window 14-day trial users can execute prescriptions once that clinical gate is met, so the trial can demonstrate the paid workflow. Student, free, or lapsed accounts see a worked example only.
Oral/systemic prescribing is blocked for optometrists; the gate is clinical and independent of your subscription price.
Does OptoGuide send my referral for me?
No. OptoGuide generates the referral text and you copy it into whatever system you already use (Oculo, Medical Objects, email, print). Copy is the primary action.
There are deliberately no referral-sending or transmission integrations — OptoGuide is a workflow tool, not a referral network.
What’s the difference between Systemic Eye and Ocular Diseases?
Ocular Diseases is the decision support library for eye conditions you recognise and manage directly.
Systemic Eye is about context you monitor but do not prescribe for: ocular manifestations of systemic disease, and ocular side effects/monitoring of systemic medicines (like hydroxychloroquine or amiodarone). It links back to the relevant disease records rather than duplicating them.
Does OptoGuide store patient data?
No patient-identifiable information (PHI) is stored or transmitted. Prescriptions and referrals are generated on your device, and PDF generation is client-side.
Copy-out letters and reports are templates you complete in your own system — they contain no patient identifiers, and nothing you type into them is persisted by OptoGuide.
What does OptoGuide cost?
There is a single individual plan at AUD $29/month (or $290/year), with a 14-day trial.
Prescribing access is a separate clinical gate (prescriber number + therapeutic endorsement) and is not something you can buy — it depends on your registration.
Safety note
OptoGuide™ supports clinical decision-making and workflow execution, but it does not replace clinician judgement. Always correlate with the patient presentation, examination findings, and your professional judgement before acting.