The Non-Hospital Medical and Surgical Facilities Accreditation Program (NHMSFAP) Committee has approved immediately sequential bilateral refractive lens exchange (IMS-RLE) surgery in non-hospital facilities. This decision follows the NHMSFAP Committee’s approval of immediately sequential bilateral cataract surgery (ISBCS) in 2018 and the publication and/or endorsement of ISBCS guidelines by the Canadian Ophthalmological Society in the last two years.
Any non-hospital facility in which these procedures are performed must be specifically accredited to perform immediately sequential procedures.
As a condition of accreditation to perform immediately sequential procedures, the medical records of the first ten immediately sequential (IMS) cases performed by each surgeon must be submitted for review to verify conformance with NHMSFAP accreditation standards.
See the Immediately Sequential Bilateral Cataract and Immediately Sequential Bilateral Refractive Lens Exchange Surgery accreditation standard for more information.
Immediately sequential bilateral Phakic IOL procedures (IMS-Phakic IOL) are not permitted.