The dental office floor plan detailed above clearly and cleanly divides the dental space into 3 clear segmented areas: non-clinical (patient and administration), clinical, (dental delivery) and clinical support (supplies, storage, and laboratory). The non-clinical space has the most diverse user traffic patterns since patients and family members, clinical, and non-clinical staff may use this area. This non-clinical space should not be blended with the clinical and clinical support areas. The bottleneck areas are the patient in-take and out-take or registration area of the patient reception desk. Inherently, all dental practices have practice waste, complexity, and variation built into the dental floor plan or the design of the practice. The clinical space has the most diverse and active traffic patterns while the clinical support area has the least.Dental staff members circulate mainly in the clinical and clinical support areas. Both the non-clinical and clinical support area should be focused inward and directed to the clinical areas. The waiting room area should adjoin the clinical...
Dental hygiene is amongst many professions that come with an increased risk of injury. In fact, evidence suggests that the incidence of dental professionals acquiring musculoskeletal disorders is reaching 96%. According to the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), these complications are a result of “repetitive motion or awkward posture for more than 2 hours at a time, unassisted frequent manual handling (eg, scaling an area using the same strokes), and unassisted forced manual handling (eg, heavy calculus removal using hand-activated instruments)”. These complications not only affect the quality of life for the
Based on the two major opportunities the office has two strategic choices for the direction the office should go into. With all the key factors taken into consideration the two strategies are 1.) Hire a new Manager and restructure the entire organization or 2.) Continue existing structure and expand with the medical demographics. The rationale for choosing the two strategies was based on the total attractive score of the opportunities, threats, strengths and weaknesses of the dental practice. In the office current status it is surviving, but unfortunately will never reach its full potential without changes. Therefore the
At CADH, I was taught how to act upon the eight competencies in different aspects for the public. As a clinician I was taught how to apply the dental hygiene process of care; assessing signs and symptoms, as well as risks factors related to oral disease, and then make a diagnosis, plan, implement, and evaluate the treatment within the dental hygiene scope of practice. One of many important roles of being a dental hygienist is being part of a dental care team where I we work in collaboration with a dentist or a dental specialist. I have been able to extensively develop my management skills to understand the administrative setting of the school, as well as the authority responsibilities and roles of my faculty and other professionals involved. As an administrator, I am responsible to manage my clients’ periodontal status, by identifying presence of disease, setting care priorities, eliminating risk factors, and deciding whether the client is already in the maintenance state or needs further special treatment. As ...
The Faculty of General Dental Practice is responsible for continued professional development of dental clinicians. It is committed to improving standards of patient care within dentistry by providing up to date publications and guidelines for clinicians. The standards and guidelines by the FGDP are evidence based and are recognised as authoritative statements of good practice within the profession (REF). The FGDP have produced standards and evidence-based guidelines detailing the Selection Criteria for Dental Radiography (REF).
Every day in the life of a dental assistant is an exciting one because of the wide variety of people you meet and the tasks that are performed. Not to mention knowing that you are contributing to helping people maintain their health by maintaining their teeth and gums.
A dental hygienist is a very important role in any dental office. As stated by a dental assistant, “Dental hygienists work closely with the dentist as well as hands on with the patients. They assist dentists with operative procedures such as fillings and extractions, and making molds of patients teeth” (Wilson, Jennifer). A large part of their job is teaching patients proper dental care to ensure a lifetime of healthy teeth. This includes proper brushing and flossing techniques. According to the job out look, a day as a dental hygienist can include taking x-rays, cleaning and scaling teeth, charting treatment plans, putting sealants on teeth, taking impressions of teeth and completing information about the patient’s oral and medical history (Summary). In some states dental hygienist are allowed to give local anesthetic and place and remove sutures (Delivering Local Anesthetic). According to advantages of becoming a dental hygienist, hygienists spend more hands on time with the patients than the dentist does. These are some of the instruments that dental hygienists use on a daily basis: toothbrush, scaler, mirror, ultrasonic scaler, explorer, suction, computer, salvia ejector, rubber cap polisher, dental models, x-ray machine and probe. The dental hygienist uses a toothbrush to remove soft plaque from the teeth. Plaque is a soft coating on the teeth that contain bacteria. The bacteria can cause tooth decay and gum disease. The amount of plaque on the teeth gives the hygienist an idea of how well the daily brushing and flossing of the patient’s teeth are completed on a regular basis. The scaler is used to remove hardened plaque or calculus from the teeth. The mirror is used to look closely at the surfaces of the teeth a...
The built environment undoubtedly affects the quality and care to the patients and family members. Patients and family members are expecting from a health care organization a well built environment that is suitable and accessible, caring for family, encouraging or beneficial to wellbeing, confidential, considerate, secure and safe. The environment checklist is an assessment tool that will help healthcare organizational designers and health care administrations accumulate information about consumer’s needs, measure satisfaction, and provide facility comparisons for molding the industry’s best practices. I reviewed the environmental checklist in my facility and discussed with my nursing manager the areas that need improvement and the areas that performing well. The three most important areas that I would address that needs to recover are 1.Information systems in place, 2.Staffing requirements and 3.Patients discharge.
At Penrose Hospital in Colorado Springs, Colorado, the staffing is determined by the patient census. Ideally, on the Surgical/ Trauma unit, Registered Nurses will have approximately 4-5 patients, with a post-operative nurse that comes in at 10am to assume care of the post-operative patients that discharge from PACU to the floor. The post-operative nurse typically receives up to five patients per shift. The CNA’s on the unit will have anywhere between 7-13 patients depending on the staffing on the floor, with the help of a unit secretary that rovers the unit, and offers help as needed. In 2014 the unit grid for the 9th floor was re-vamped by the assistance of the unit practice counsel. After discussion with a nurse leader on the 9th floor, the clinical manager sat down with the unit practice counsel, and the unit practice counsel chair to discuss budget, and staffing. It was noted after slight changes, the increase in employee satisfaction. The staff members felt their voice was heard, thus they were able to make slight changes that the entire unit was able to agree upon, with staying within budget. Furthermore, with the ability for the unit practice council members to be able to visualize what goes into maintaining a budget, and getting budgets approved, there was a greater appreciation for decisions that were made. Finally, with the new changes, and tweaks there was a decrease in unapproved
During my clinical rotation at the Veterans Administration (VA) Hospital in Birmingham, Alabama I was able to manage the task of developing an effective electronic documentation template for the Ambulatory Surgery Facility (ASF) within the VA hospital. The ASF focuses on providing surgical, diagnostic, and preventative procedures in a same-day care setting. This facility offers veterans the convenience of having procedures performed safely outside of the inpatient hospital setting.
As a child, they looked like monsters trying to hunt me in my dreams. No matter how basic and painless the procedure was going to be, the fact that I had to visit a dentist, used to make me terrified and trembled. Once, I remember waiting at a patient area while crying and begging my older sister to take me back home just to avoid a simple tooth cleaning procedure, while she was astonishingly looking at me and wondering if I had lost my mind.
Every year there is a new system, machine, or dental material that you could use. Dentistry gives you the chance to learn and expand the services you can offer in your practice. You truly become a lifelong learner. This is something that is rather important to me. I remember going to my dental externship and seeing the dentists Cerec, a crown milling unit. I was fascinated by the way that it could take a block and mill it into a crown just from a few scans the dentist took. That cut out lab fees and allowed for the dentist to produce same day crowns. I remember thinking I was made for this industry. I used to get on the dentist’s nerves because, I was always asking questions. My head would always be in his way during procedures because I was so curious about what was going on. He told me dental assistants like me need to go to dental school. Nothing remains the same in this industry. There is always a new, better, and easier way to do
The application of Electronic Dental Records is being evolving for a while now. In its beginnings, it was merely paper records being faxed over between one or more entities. Today, we count with Electronic Dental Records management systems that are powerful enough to even store complete sets of radiographies and Cone Beam Computer Tomography’s (CBCTs). Some applications of these systems include but are not limited to the reading, edition, and storage of patient’s information, dental needs, history of dental treatments, etc. An Electronic Dental Records system's ability to capture detailed clinical information in a highly structured manner can enable analysis for quality assessment, identification of areas for improvement, and the design of
As time goes on there is new demands or requirements in education and work environments. Most of the dentistry field stresses the skills of cleaning teeth, communication with patients and knowing how to use an x-ray. However, employees in the dentistry field might have to get additional education on the new advanced instruments or computer system rather than focusing on how to make the patient more comfortable. If this keeps going, machines might take over doing common oral cleanings rather than hygienist doing it. There is no promising that anything drastic will change in the future, but it should be a concern; a concern that pops the question, "Will proper care be met during the era of
Dentists are medical professional who specializes in the diagnosis, prevention, and treatment of diseases and condition of the oral cavity. The dental team is formed of dental assistants, dental hygienists, and dental laboratory technician. Dental assistants assist the dentist by preparing the patient for treatment. During the procedure, dental assistants hold the devices and presenting dental radiographs. Dental hygienists deals with oral hygiene to provide three type of surfaces which are; educate the patient how to maintain a good healthy teeth, preventive services to get good oral health, and stop diseases to maintain good healthy tissue in the mouth. Dental laboratory technician is both science and an art of manufacturing corrective devices and replacements for natural teeth.
AS a dentist one should be strongly determined to devote selflessly for the betterment of mankind .Patient usuall...