Digital Imaging Systems

My mom is an optometrist, so I thought she would have some interesting technology to share with me. She explained to me that as the world becomes more digital, more and more equipment is brought to her. One new piece of technology that she recently had to master was a digital imaging system that allows her to look into patient's eyes through a computer screen after images are captured, rather than manually looking herself. She said that at first, it was quite difficult to master because she had to learn how to capture the images in helpful and efficient ways - a new skill that she wasn't taught in optometry school. She learned about the technology alongside other optometrists at a conference, and her practice decided to take up the new system soon after. She feels that it made her job more productive, however she explains that she uses the system as a support tool rather than an exclusive one. She still manually checks the patient's eyes herself, and then uses digital imaging to take a look later on after the exam. She said it added more work, but it also takes some away - her own notes, for example, don't have to be quite as thorough because she can still take a look at the patient after they leave. She says that by combining the new technology with the old one, she thinks her production increases. As a student of LIS201, I think that my mom's explanation was a familiar one - while it's difficult for new technology to completely replace old ones, the gradual transition into using it through a combination of both makes it easier to adapt to. Both what we've discussed in class and my own experiences support this theory.