Dentistry is a team sport?


I believe it is.  Nothing makes this so apparent as to what happens when one of my team goes missing. Our stress level go's through the proverbial roof. Since each member of the team plays a vital part of delivering dental care, when one is missing, each member has to work even harder to accomplish even uncomplicated dentistry.

In the real world team absences are not that uncommon, since illness, vacations and family leave can cause members to drop out for periods of time. As much as possible, most offices tend to have staff that are crossed trained to perform multiple jobs. This works reasonably well with the exception of replacing the actual dentist, since when he or she is "out" not much production can occur.

Each member of the team plays a crucial role in our patients treatment. This starts with our receptionist who books the appointment. She must know what procedure to book for and how long to schedule the appointment. After the appointment most receptionists are also involved with making sure that the completed procedure is paid for by both collecting any co-pay and ,or sending out a bill to the insurance company or the patient. My receptionist is also responsible for making sure appointments are confirmed and she often makes changes in our schedule as the day proceeds. If my assistant doesn't come in my receptionist will work in my room as my dental assistant as well.

My dental assistant has a number of responsibilities. She is in charge of infection control and as such must make sure all instruments used are sterilized or disposed of after each use. She breaks down the room after each visit and wipes all contaminated surfaces with disinfectants. She also pours models, packs lab cases, calls the lab for pick ups and checks in all cases when they return from the dental laboratory. In addition she is in charge of ordering supplies. Of course when my patient is in the room, she assists  chair side as well.

My hygienists are responsible for treating patients on recall appointments. This can involve perio probing, taking x-rays, and cleaning teeth and sterilizing instruments afterwards. They also remind my patients of any work that was previously treatment planned but not performed. While cleaning a patient's teeth, my hygienists also carefully inspect the their teeth and make notes any possible problems.

Me ... I'm responsible for everything. Aside from performing all sorts of dental procedures I am also responsible for developing treatment plans, returning phone calls, and writing all prescriptions. Most days our team performs well and our patients leave happy, but if something doesn't go as planned or a patient leaves dissatisfied, I am the one who has to ultimately decide how to rectify the situation. Often I include my team in discussing a solution during our morning huddle. Each day we start the day with a meeting where we review what happened the previous day and discuss the up an coming day. At least in our practice dentistry is definitely at team sport!

from Ask Dr. Spindel - http://lspindelnycdds.blogspot.com/2018/07/dentistry-is-team-sport.html - http://lspindelnycdds.blogspot.com/

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