Nobody argues that training staff matters.The argument is about what it costs not to.
Here is the published research this product is built on — what a departure costs, what delegation to well-trained staff gives a doctor back, and whether simulation teaches. Every figure carries its attribution and its limits, because several of them are routinely quoted as things they are not.
~10 hrs
recaptured per week, and 11 more patients seen, by doctors who delegate non-physician tasks to well-trained or certified paraoptometric staff
AOA reports
Reported by doctors who delegate well. It is what good delegation is worth, not what installing software is worth.
40%
of annual salary — Gallup's estimate of what it costs to replace a frontline employee, rising to about 80% for technical professionals
Gallup estimates
An estimate of replacement cost, not a saving. It only becomes money when a departure is actually avoided.
12%
of employees strongly agree their organization does a great job of onboarding new people
Gallup reports
This is the problem statement, not a benchmark you beat by buying anything.
The rest of the picture
Retention, productivity and what the people you are hiring right now say they want from an employer.
- 58% / 50%
greater three-year retention associated with structured onboarding, and greater new-hire productivity associated with standardized onboarding
research cited by SHRM · SHRM — onboarding research summary
These are figures SHRM cites from other research, not SHRM's own experimental results. Association, not established cause.
- 42%
of voluntary leavers said their manager or organization could have done something to prevent their departure
Gallup reports · Gallup — preventable turnover
Supports development and management as retention levers. It does not mean training prevents 42% of turnover.
- 11%
greater profitability at organizations that invest strategically in employee development, which are also twice as likely to retain their people
Gallup reports · Gallup — employee development, profitability and retention
Organization-wide investment, of which a training platform is one part. Do not read the whole effect onto one purchase.
- 88%
of Gen Z respondents valued on-the-job learning and practical experience, with learning and development a top-three reason they chose their employer
Deloitte's 2025 survey · Deloitte — 2025 Gen Z and Millennial Survey
An argument for practical, progression-shaped training. Not an argument that younger staff need games.
Does practicing on a simulator actually teach?
This is the one question where the evidence is about our method rather than about the problem — and it is the strongest evidence on this page.
609
studies
35,226
trainees
Across 609 studies and 35,226 health-professions trainees, technology-enhanced simulation was associated with significant gains in knowledge, skills, behaviors and patient outcomes compared with no intervention.
Cook et al., JAMA 2011 · JAMA meta-analysis of technology-enhanced simulation
The meta-analysis reports substantial heterogeneity, and it covers health-professions training broadly rather than optometric support staff specifically. It is strong evidence that practicing before the patient works — not a transferable effect size for this product.
How we use these numbers — and how we don't
Every figure above describes a problem or a method. None of them describes an outcome measured from this product, and we will not present them as though they do. No practice has run OptoLearn long enough to have that data yet.
The honest version of the pitch is narrower and more useful: your onboarding burden is a number you already know, and you can work out for yourself how much of it this would have to remove to be worth buying.
What we would rather show you, once we can
The evidence worth having is the evidence from practices actually running this. It is what the platform is instrumented to collect:
- Doctor and manager training hours per new hire, before and after
- Time to competency by role and by skill
- Simulator completion and retry rates against manager sign-off
- Cross-training coverage across the practice
- Retention and turnover where a practice can measure it