- Team DentalReach
Abstract
A real team of dentists is the selling point of the clinic. Changes in the modern market of dental services strongly dictate the renewal of the principles involving different specialists, as well as the introduction of new methods of teaching them collegial work. Those who do not understand this, risk losing competitiveness and stagnating at the same level of service quality.
Firstly, do we need a team of dentists?
In terms of team style, modern practical dentistry should reach the level of medical healthcare services. This is due to several clearly expressed circumstances:
- Firstly, new technological possibilities have appeared for the treatment of complex clinical cases, which requires the participation of dentists of various narrow specialties.
- Secondly, advanced doctors of different profiles have began to unite their efforts in case of combined disorders in the oral cavity, showing an increased level of professional responsibility.
- Third, a significant factor in achieving the economic indicators of clinics has become consultation and treatment with the participation of dentists of various profiles, who are able to fulfill collegial recommended plans.
- Fourthly, more and more patients prefer to be treated in clinics, whose specialists work in a single legal field, demonstrating responsibility before the laws, observing the standards of consultation and follow-up treatment.
- Fifth, the number of patients - who are interested in eliminating all oral disorders and to pay highly qualified teams of specialists for the same- have increased.
Providing a range of services to patients, with the participation of a team of specialists is a raging problem in private dentistry. The demand for a team approach to treatment is proved by the following facts:
1. Forums, conferences and training programs, which combines the efforts of dentists of different profiles are increasingly being announced.
For example, the training offered for occlusion disorders concerns a holistic approach that includes “restorative, periodontal, implant and orthodontic strategies as key success factors”. Or to solve the problems of periodontology, osteintegration and implant treatment with the participation of a surgeon and prosthodontist, as well as a dental technician.
2. Dentists now discuss with colleagues of different specialties when planning and treating clinical situations (simple and complex).
Usually the conversation is limited to recognizing the relevance of obtaining additional knowledge, reasoning at the level of common sense and examples from practice, which is useful in principle, but not enough for a noticeable breakthrough in ensuring the quality of treatment and medical service.
3. Commercial clinics, responding to urgent need of teamwork, are increasingly order training seminars on the topics ‘personnel-team’, ‘corporate training of personnel’, ‘practice management’.
This is evidence that individual leaders are ripe to discuss the realities of teamwork. However, practice shows that the results of corporate training have a very slow effect; not all doctors are ready to learn new principles of team organization, and they do not show not enough patience to eliminate shortcomings and overcome stereotypes in collective work.
Traditional vs Modern Dentistry
Advanced dentists on the internet ask themselves the question: "How to overcome the traditional segmentation in dentistry, if the knowledge of a narrow specialist is not enough to effectively eliminate associated pathologies?"
Indeed, our university programs does not teach collegial thinking of different specialists, although each future doctor studies a range of isolated problems, there is no talk of joint decision-making, and even more so about team interaction with service recipients. Some dentists object to further narrowing of dental specializations, seeing in this the likelihood of a decrease in treatment quality, and there are also doctors who advocate the abolition of specializations within our specialty!
In professional groups on Facebook, the questions are frequently raised about a new interdisciplinary concept, according to which it is necessary to involve even non-dental specialists at different stages of dental treatment. The interdisciplinary approach involves dentists and doctors of a non-dental profile, as a result, an interdisciplinary treatment plan is drawn up. For example, a clinic in Bangalore, India engages a speech therapist to successfully correct the work of the tongue after orthodontic treatment of children. Some cases of malocclusions need the involvement of an osteopath. It is no longer uncommon for a dentist, a dermatologist and abeautician to work in tandem for one esthetic result. To make a decision on dental interventions, sometimes a consultation (conclusion) of a cardiologist, neurologist, general practitioner is required.
Case Example: There was a case where, according to the doctor, periodontal treatment did not give the desired result due to the fact that the patient suffered from alcoholism and did not stop it. After the recommendation of a practice management expert, the dentist hired a narcologist to achieve the desired effect; the joint efforts were successful during the period of remission.
This is evidence of a very high level of professional thinking, in which dentistry accepts its cornerstone postulate is medicine. In theory, no one denies this truth, but in practice this finds a weak application. This can be judged by how carelessly dentists take into account the impact of physical health on the effects of treatment, how they make mistakes when using anesthesia, how reluctantly they predict treatment outcomes and guarantees based on somatic status.
Where does a dental team start?
Teamwork implies an unconditional acceptance by dentists of various psychological attitudes and forms of collegial behavior, which an ordinary professional working independently, would not think about.
1. Team members must learn to work together effectively to exercise clinical thinking.
Team members should:
- adequately assess their capabilities in each treatment situation
- set realistically achievable goals in a specific clinical case
- evaluate the combined possibilities of achieving the desired results and draw up a treatment plan
- predict (and calculate) the results of medical intervention
- anticipate possible discomforts during and after treatment
- communicate reasonable guarantees to patients
- take into account the somatic health of patients when choosing treatment options, using medications, anesthesia, determining guarantees
- provide yourself with professional protection by taking informed voluntary consent to medical interventions within each specialization.
2. Team members must learn to jointly influence patients in order to gain "confidence points" at all stages of interaction.
The stages of dentist-patient interaction include: during consultation, during treatment and post treatment (control, planned and preventive clinical examinations, and elimination of complaints after treatment about treatment quality, warranty service). Team members should:
- demonstrate their competitive advantages by working on the principle of contrast, that is, better than their closest competitors
- competently present their services (discuss the pros and cons of each possible treatment option, argue the cost of treatment, involve patients in discussing the images)
- give necessary and sufficient information about the essence of each treatment stage
- communicate professionally with patients (express themselves in an accessible language, explain why the proposed treatment option was chosen, take into account wishes, overcome doubts, fear and fear)
- take into account the material interests of patients (provide discounts, offer treatment options based on the principle of "value for money")
- exclude the impression of deception (these arise when patients' questions are ignored, vague information is given about the cost of the upcoming treatment, and unreasonable guarantees are given)
- discuss with the patient about their somatic health in such a way, that they are convinced of the professionalism and genuine concern of the doctors for their well-being.
3. Team members must learn to control the manifestation of those personal qualities, on which the psychological climate of joint activities and the elimination of conflicts depend.
For example, team members must -
- recognize the credibility and work experience of more experienced team members
- respect each other's opinions - listen carefully and delve into the proposals of colleagues, adopt useful suggestions and comments
- express their opinions reasonably
- not show intellectual and professional superiority
- show self-criticism
- patiently observe individual personality traits of colleagues
- restrain emotions
- subordinate their interests to the interests of the business.
Where does a dental team end?
When creating a team of specialists, it is necessary to declare a ban on common mistakes that dentists could make in individual work with patients. This could bring an end to the team approach along with many administrative issues.
Among such errors are:
1. Saving of time by reducing mandatory professional communication.
Mandatory professional communication is a component of a doctor's professional activity, which consists in the ability to provide the patient with necessary and sufficient information about the medical service in an accessible and complete manner. The biggest problem is when doctors jointly draw up a plan orally, and at the treatment stage forget its details and show inattention to the agreements.
Mandatory professional communication includes:
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