Growing up in Virginia, Dr. Jennifer Tsai developed a series of eye conditions which caused her to need glasses—thick, oversized ones due to high prescriptions—from elementary school through high school. She almost lost her vision in high school after getting a corneal ulcer. Then in college, it was discovered during an eye exam that she had a bilateral retinal tear. It was these experiences that propelled Dr. Tsai to become super interested in eye care and motivated her to study optometry.
“[The eyes are] the first thing we use when we wake up and the last [thing] when we go to sleep,” Dr. Tsai said to me early last month in an interview conducted via videoconference.
Yes, optometry intersects nicely with disability and technology.
Dr. Tsai is founding partner and medical director of Line of Sight, her optometry practice based in New York’s Hudson Yards. Light of Sight’s mission is to provide “tailored, medically-based full-scope optometric care in a serene and intimate setting.” Light of Sight bills itself as taking a “thoughtful approach far beyond the routine, extending to holistic wellness and ocular aesthetics.” The company, which went from ideation in 2018 to operational in 2020, offers services such as comprehensive eye exams, full-scope medical optometry, myopia management, and more. The decision to provide her patients more personalized care was intentional, as Dr. Tsai noticed how impersonal and sterile the majority of optometric care is while working her first job after graduation in the corneal department at New York City’s Mount Sinai Hospital.
“What I noticed was there was this lack of a personalized approach to eye care,” she said of the traditional model. “Every patient who walks through the door when they leave, there are so many ways to personalize treatments for patients that are unique to them [and] would best benefit them. I felt like the interaction felt very cold, and oftentimes when patients come in, it was a little too late to [fix] the problem. There are so many preventative ways to correct vision and improve eye health before it gets to a point where it’s too late, and I wanted to focus on that.”
Another aspect of Line of Sight is eyewear. Dr. Tsai’s goal with the eyewear is to provide patients with options they “want to wear, not glasses they get and they sit there.” The curated collection includes luxury brands, and Light of Sight’s office includes what Dr. Tsai described as a “optical gallery space” in front where quarterly events are held with customers, editors, and influencers. “It’s really creating a lifestyle brand for patients where they want to be part of it,” Dr. Tsai said of offering eyewear. “They see eye care and vision as part of their life.”
Throughout Line of Sight’s life, Dr. Tsai has focused on growing her presence on social media. She resisted social media for a long time, as she felt there were stigmas attached to doctors using it. Nonetheless, Dr. Tsai realized the medium’s reach and immediacy meant it was ideal for educating a wide swath people about vision and the importance of eye care. The pivot paid off, as her platform is fulfilling the promise of helping others gain better knowledge about their eyes. Dr. Tsai boasts 260,000 followers on Instagram, with another 191,000 more on TikTok.
“My platform is used to educate people about eye care and to really show you can be multi-dimensional as a doctor and have various passions and combine them all and [do] everything you want to do,” she said.
Indeed, technology plays a pivotal role in Dr. Tsai’s and Line of Sight’s successes. In addition to maintaining a highly informative website, Line of Sight links to its Instagram account and says it prefers texts over calls to the office phone number. Medically speaking, Dr. Tsai told me “technology is there to help so long as it’s safe for the patient,” adding she’s always trying to be an early adopter of technologies that’s truly helpful and useful for patients. She cited the use of human tissue on the eye and using nighttime lenses for treating myopia as examples. Moreover, Dr. Tsai became the first optometrist to use FDA-approved devices commonly used in the cosmetics industry in her treatments. In fact, part of her role as a medical advisor involves evangelization. Dr. Tsai spends a lot of time educating other doctors about embracing these new types of technologies and how they can augment patient care.
“[Using technology] is really focused on what can improve someone’s life day-to-day, given what they may or may not have,” Dr. Tsai said of using technology in treatment. “If it’s something that can be worked on before it gets to a point [past] what can we do for treatments with devices that can help. There are always various ways for us to improve everything and not have to rely on medication or surgery for that outcome.”
Dr. Tsai’s use of technology in both medical and marketing contexts go a long way in modernizing optometry for the 21st century. Line of Sight gets patients from all over the world, with Dr. Tsai telling me the team has seen patients come from places like South America and Canada. People are finding Dr. Tsai on Instagram, but also TikTok and YouTube as well on forums. Dr. Tsai was keen to emphasize all of this marketing happens organically; Line of Sight doesn’t use any sort of conventional paid advertising. It’s essentially just old-fashioned, word-of-mouth advertising made more conducive to this tech-heavy modern age.
“Since day one, [marketing] has been organic from social media education, patient reviews, referrals, patients who had a great experience,” Dr. Tsai said of her company’s marketing strategies. “When it comes to that great experience, I think that’s the biggest factor. When patients come into our space, they often say they feel like they’re not at a doctor. They’re not at a doctor’s office; they feel like they could spend their entire day there. It feels like they’re at a hotel or a spa and it’s enjoyable and relaxing. It’s curating this experience for the patient way where they don’t feel like the doctor experience is this one-and-done.”
Asked about her hopes and dreams for the future, Dr. Tsai told me she hopes to build out Line of Sight to reach even more people, hopefully through opening more locations in multiple cities. She’s also interested in creating a new line of eye hygiene products that help guard against common problems like dry eye and infections, saying styes are caused most often by lackluster eyelid hygiene. Lastly, she has thought about starting a new company that focuses solely on myopia prevention. By 2050, Dr. Tsai said, 50% of the global population will be nearsighted.
“This is becoming a huge problem,” she said. “I want to find a way to be able to provide a more impactful way to reach people globally.”
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