News from the AOA's Blog

The Foundation for Eye Health Awareness hosted the second Eye Health Summit last month. Themed “From the Foundation Up,” the Eye Health Summit provided its 150 attendees with an opportunity to participate in small group and breakout activities, as well as a number of networking breaks. Mike Daley, president and executive director of the foundation, along with board members, welcomed Summit attendees at a ribbon-cutting ceremony held at the opening reception.

“Cutting the ribbon symbolically opened the doors of our new educational foundation to members of the vision community to participate,” said Daley. “With participants ranging from non-profit organizations to manufacturers to managed care plans, the summit brought together key decision-makers from throughout the vision community.”

This year’s format included keynote speaker Lynn Vos of Grey Healthcare Group who addressed trends in health care communications. Foundation board members Barry Barresi, O.D., Ph.D., Wally Lovejoy, Greg Marko and Dave Sattler gave a history of the foundation, summarized current activities and spoke about future plans.

Eye Health Summit attendees also had a chance to learn about the Think About Your Eyes campaign, which the foundation will begin managing in 2011. The Think About Your Eyes presentation highlighted the campaign elements, including advertising, Web and social media outreach, public relations and market research.

The afternoon breakout sessions allowed members of the vision community to provide suggestions and direction on future activities of the Foundation. Select participants were invited to participate in focus groups that evaluated an upcoming Think About Your Eyes television advertisement. The remaining participants met in discussion groups on communications and consolidating resources to help increase eye exams.

“This year’s summit showed that we have individuals from all areas of the vision community who are committed to improving eye health among all Americans, especially those at risk of eye disease,” said Dr. Barresi, board of directors chair. “The enthusiasm created at the event was carried into our board meeting the next day where we set strategic objectives for the organization that we look forward to refining and sharing with the vision community in the coming weeks.”