The College of Optometrists
supporting members with guidance & resources at their fingertips
4.9
stars average review score across both app stores
26%
adoption rate of all members using the app
10K
total downloads across iOS and Android
Categories
Apps, Membership
Awards
Prolific North Tech Awards 2020: Best Application of Tech – Health
View Project
The College of Optometrists is the professional body for optometrists, boasting over 16,000 members. The College delivers the route to qualification for the profession and delivers the guidance, resources, and development opportunities to enable its members to deliver the highest-quality care to patients.

To support its members, the College provides an extensive range of clinical and ethical guidance and resources. As optometrists operate mostly in isolation, in practice rooms, and largely without internet access, the challenge was to provide offline access to resources in an easy-to-access format.


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A TOOLKIT IN MEMBERS' POCKETS.

Cantarus built a mobile app on the MemConnect platform as a way of providing College members with an additional value-add via an in-practice toolkit and unifying the many sources of guidance from across their digital estate.

The College provides a significant value offering to its members and creates a substantial amount of content to supplement this. Initially, it was tempting to replicate the entire suite of functionality provided by their existing website, but working closely with the MemConnect team, we were able to clarify exactly what would deliver value. We settled on the notion of an in-practice toolkit and centred all further decisions around this idea.
DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION.
We unified the three key guidance solutions maintained by the College – Clinical Management Guidelines, Formulary, and general Guidance. Each is managed in a separate digital estate, but unified by MemConnect and formatted for mobile, without any additional effort by College staff. Members can access the app via the Single Sign-On feature, and don't need to register separately.

Leveraging the power of a new platform, we created the ability to bookmark content across all data sources into one, easy access favourites list. This is available on the app’s dashboard all year-round. Users can easily slice through the comprehensive guidance material to find the content they’re frequently engaging with, and maintain a handy quick reference within the app.
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EVERYTHING NEEDED FOR EXCELLENCE IN PRACTICE.
We created an innovative solution that downloads the complete guidance information to the device and updates this when a connection is established. Additionally, the footprint of the app is minuscule and optimised so that it doesn't consume much of the device’s available storage space. The College produces short-form multiple-choice quizzes known as ‘Ethical Scenarios’ for members to test their knowledge. As an under-appreciated resource on the web, and as a form-factor well suited to mobile, we integrated this content directly into the app as an extra engagement tool.

The College also has the ability to send out surveys to its members via MemConnect’s Surveys feature, and can access valuable results and insights through the innovative MemConnect cloud analytics tool. This enables the College to get in-tune with their members’ needs. Upcoming events are listed so members can browse and choose which events they want to attend. Each event also includes the number of CET points it is worth if they attend. As well, students can browse through the pre-registration jobs board. Jobs can be filtered by region, as well as searched for up to the next three years. All the details on who to contact and how to apply are conveniently included within the app.

The College is thrilled with the results from the app, with feedback from students being really positive and encouraging. Within two months of the app going live, it was featured on Google Play Store as the most downloaded medical app in a single month.
Cantarus is professional to deal with and has adopted a flexible approach to delivering the first phase of an app that we hope will come to be recognised and valued by members as a leading membership benefit. I would recommend Cantarus to any organisation considering building a member-facing app.
Catherine Bithell, Director of Member Services & Communications
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