How digital tech will transform the Optical Sector

Digital technology is changing every profession, not least my former sector, optics and ophthalmology. This Foresight Report was a 'deep-dive', examining the tech trends for the next 10-15 years, considering how professional and public behaviour could change as a result, looking at the consequences for the business model, and then the ramifications for education and regulation. There are no guarantees of who will be delivering what, and where, by 2030. But unless professionals and businesses adapt with the times, they risk becoming unviable. Arguably the optical sector, with its deep dependency on retail, will be the health sector to feel it first. Call it the second-machine age or our modern Gutenberg moment: many medical monopolies that have enjoyed supremacy for (quite literally) hundreds of years have now to work out how to evolve their offering, or be dismantled from the outside in. The optical practice, in whatever form, will need to give the public stronger reasons to enter its premises in the future. The impending fundamental and irreversible changes within the optical sector are many, but so are the opportunities to embrace them and move forward. Those who become agile, value relationships, learn how to harness the public’s interest and share expertise, will be the ones who flourish.