Evaluating the Adequacy of the Geographic Distribution of Eye Care Professionals in Alberta
Bibliographic record
Abstract
A refraction is one of several tests performed by optometrists and ophthalmologists to issue a patient’s prescription for glasses. In Alberta, optometrists and ophthalmologists are authorized to perform refractions and prescribe based on that refraction; however, opticians are only authorized to refract. This study investigates whether there is a public need for opticians to be licensed to perform refractions and prescribe based on that refraction based on the adequacy of the geographic distribution of eye care professionals in Alberta. To answer this question, the optometrist and ophthalmologist to population ratios for each of Alberta’s five health zones were calculated and compared to international benchmarks. Our results show that all five of Alberta’s health zones have optometrist to population ratios that either meet or exceed the 1:10,000 international benchmark, and three of the five health zones have ophthalmologist to population ratios that meet or exceed the 3:100,000 international benchmark. Based on this data, there is an adequate distribution of optometrists but an inadequate distribution of ophthalmologists in the province. However, in regard to refractions, there is no overwhelming public need for opticians to refract and prescribe based on the refraction.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.002 | 0.005 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.002 | 0.002 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".