• Unsuitable

As a general rule, new patients were considered unsuitable and needed an initial assessment by a GE. According to Ho et al. [39], decision-making at a first appointment was more related to diagnosis rather than continuing management.

Except for the SC-MEH [40,42] and the SC-QMC [39], patients with unstable glaucoma were considered unsuitable. A patient was considered to be unstable, if the tIOP was exceeded, or if progression was detected using functional or structural testing.

Complicated cases were also excluded, due to the high risk of visual loss. Patients were deemed to fall into this category if they had other eye diseases, advanced glaucoma (definite optic disc pathology or repeatable visual field loss over 12 dB and/or within 10 degrees of fixation, with or without normal IOP [28]), clinical complications or (recently) underwent surgery or laser therapy.

• Suitable

Generally, a patient was considered suitable when being stable, a glaucoma suspect, or with a low-to-moderate risk of visual loss.

• Back-referral

A patient could be referred back to the GE, in case of patient-specific conditions or at regular intervals, regardless of the glaucoma status, as an internal quality check.
