Knights Templar Eye Foundation, Inc Enhances Pediatric Eye Care Through the IRIS Registry Pediatric Ophthalmology Research Fund
The Knights Templar Eye Foundation’s IRIS® Registry (Intelligent Registry in Sight) Pediatric Ophthalmology Research Fund is another example of the vibrant collaboration between the Knights and the American Academy of Ophthalmology. The Fund was developed with the following objectives: eliminate blindness, educate ophthalmologists, invest in the improvement of quality eye care for the public, and serve the youngest and most vulnerable populations.
What
The Academy launched the IRIS Registry in March 2014 to promote improvements in care delivery and patient outcomes, and to provide individual physicians with feedback on their performance and comparison to national benchmarks. It is the nation’s first comprehensive eye disease clinical database and has grown to the world’s largest single clinical specialty database with over 80 million patients and 880 million patient encounters.
IRIS Registry data is analyzed and used to provide ophthalmologists with information on their patients’ responses to treatments and outcomes, and adherence to best practices and changes in therapy. Analyses of the data have already led to scientific discoveries and 211 peer-reviewed publications that have focused on pediatric eye diseases and patients, including articles titled “Major Complications following strabismus surgery: Nine-year data from the IRIS® (Intelligent Research in Sight) Registry,” “Pediatric macular hole outcomes with surgical and non-surgical management: An IRIS® Registry study,” and “Comparative Endophthalmitis Rates in Adult and Pediatric Patients Across Various Ophthalmic Procedures: An IRIS® Registry Analysis”.
Beginning in 2019, the Fund has also provided monetary grants to ophthalmologists who utilized IRIS Registry data to investigate both rare and common eye diseases affecting children and to uncover optimal, real-world approaches to prevention and treatment. The 14 awardees were recognized for their efforts to advance the understanding of childhood eye disease. In addition, the Fund has helped to promote an emphasis on pediatric eye disease studies, supporting the Academy's efforts to increase the number of pediatric patients and pediatric ophthalmologists included in the IRIS Registry, as well as academic medical centers.
Armed with IRIS Registry data, the Academy also developed quality measures for pediatric ophthalmologists in amblyopia (2024 and 2025), strabismus surgery (2018 through 2023), and adult strabismus surgery (2019 through 2023).
Members of the Academy, including the more than 500 pediatric ophthalmologists participating in the Registry, say that the IRIS Registry is the most significant thing the Academy has ever accomplished in terms of its ability to be a major force to improve eye care.
Who
Eligible physicians who sign up and meet the reporting requirements can use the IRIS Registry to report clinical quality data to the Merit-Based Incentive Payment System. The IRIS Registry automatically extracts and submits data for MIPS quality measures to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) on behalf of practices integrated with their Electronic Health Record (EHR).
Why
Unfortunately, a smaller proportion of the 80 million patients and patient encounters in the IRIS Registry database are children, mainly because the incentives for participation through federal reimbursement programs are not as strong for pediatric ophthalmologists and for academic medical centers where many pediatric ophthalmologists work.
The Knights Templar Eye Foundation IRIS Registry Pediatric Ophthalmology Research Fund utilizes the power of the IRIS Registry to perform analyses and research to address major causes of severe vision loss in children and to uncover new insights on prevention, disease prevalence, medication and surgery effectiveness, natural history of disease and treatment complications. Specifically, the program focuses on four major areas. First, pediatric ophthalmologists and more academic medical centers are continually recruited to participate in the IRIS Registry. Second, the IRIS Registry develops new quality measures for pediatric eye care, enabling pediatric ophthalmologists to review their performance and improve treatment safety and effectiveness over time. Third, the IRIS Registry creates learning plans that draw on the KTEF Pediatric Ophthalmology Education Center resources, allowing pediatric ophthalmologists to provide better care. Fourth, the IRIS Registry supports grants for researchers to investigate pediatric eye diseases and uncover real-world evidence on prevention and treatment practices that lead to improved sight.
As a result of the Knights Templar Eye Foundation’s generous grant, the Knights Templar Eye Foundation IRIS Registry Pediatric Ophthalmology Research Fund provides pediatric ophthalmologists and patients with the tool of “Big Data” to identify patterns of disease and treatment that lead to better care of children’s vision in the United States.