Local, tailored patient care for healthier communities
Featured Products Promotional FeaturesPosted by: Dental Design 2nd August 2020
A dental practice is very much a local business and a successful practice will be fully focussed on meeting the specific needs of its community. In this new era of dentistry, although we will see changes, what won’t change is the importance of providing an exceptional patient service for improved health outcomes. When oral health is good, general health and wellbeing is good. Your practice will have to adapt and find new ways of doing things, but this is a real opportunity to be more responsive to your patients than ever before.
The quality of every dental visit will be fundamental to ensuring patients return for appointments, are motivated to keep attending and are receptive to any advice you give. For some years now, how to build patient loyalty and maintain your numbers has been a hot topic. Although every practice has many long-term, even life-long patients on its books, a growing number of people will happily switch to a different practice that is cheaper/has more convenient appointment times/has a better reputation/was recommended by a friend, etc.
What does patient loyalty look like in 2020, with many practices only just now reopening after months of closure? The long-term impact of Coronavirus on the dental industry is unknown. How every practice manages a return to “normality” will be down to factors unique to them and is unlikely to be a linear process. With none of us having faced these circumstances before, we’re all on a learning curve. There will also be patients fearful about going to the dentist at all because they are worried about infection control, or who have less money to spend on treatment.
When you are a true centre of dental excellence, you actually want your patients to be coming in less often, because you have enabled them to value and to take control of their own oral health. When a dentist has motivated an individual to practise daily, preventive behaviours and understand that by intercepting problems early, they will avoid frequent (and expensive) appointments, patient and practice will reap the benefits. The patient will reduce their risk of dental and oral-health related complications and keep more of their natural teeth intact. This means they’ll save time and money too. For the practice, you will be improving the standard of oral health and therefore general health of your local community.
Essentially, when your patients come to your practice, they are empowering themselves. They’re taking the first step towards needing fewer oral interventions. An example of this is the early interception of tooth wear because action now will improve the oral and general health of future generations. Tooth wear is a clinically significant issue because it is affecting more and more younger adults, as well as children.[i] Early detection and interception will prevent younger patients in your community facing functional and aesthetic problems in later life – severe tooth wear in adulthood has also been negatively associated with psychological impacts.[ii]
When tooth wear is detected in the permanent teeth of a child, even if they can’t see or feel it, responding now will avoid any serious compromise to their dentition in the future, which could necessitate “extensive restorative procedures” to restore the function, form and look of the teeth – a beautiful smile has become a hugely important and desirable asset in recent years.[iii] Preventive measures for children will include recommending they change certain behaviours, for example, dietary habits (consuming acidic fruits/fruit juice is associated with tooth wear) and reviewing brushing technique (they should be shown how to gently brush, not scrub). For young adults, the dentist will consider factors like acid reflux (often the consequence of disordered eating), and bruxism. The practitioner will want to investigate what is causing the patient to exhibit these habits, or make a referral to other healthcare providers if an eating problem is suspected or confirmed by the patient.[iv]
A responsive dentist who intercepts tooth wear at its early stage is supporting their patient to slow down the rate of dental decline. When restorative treatment is required for an older patient, because tooth wear wasn’t intercepted early enough, a conservative, minimally invasive approach that preserves healthy dentition must be favoured.[v] The clinician should use materials that strengthen, rather than take away from the tooth structure. COLTENE has a range of restorative materials, including BRILLIANT™ EverGlow, Crios and Fill-Up™ that clinicians can use in various situations, including as a solution for tooth wear. The materials will restore function as well as aesthetics and will provide a strong, long-lasting result that will prevent the patient getting into a restorative cycle.
This is the time to focus on offering a local centre of dental excellence, responding to patients’ needs so they can return to and stay in good oral health for years to come. This means they will enjoy improved quality of life in the present with fewer interventions in the future and you will become a central part of a healthier community.
For more on COLTENE, visit www.coltene.com,
email info.uk@coltene.com or call 0800 254 5115.
Author: Nicolas Coomber COLTENE National Account & Marketing Manager
[i] Bartlett DW, Lussi A, West NX, Bouchard P, Sanz M, Bourgeois D. Prevalence of tooth wear on buccal and lingual surfaces and possible risk factors in young European adults. J Dent 2013; 41: 1007-1013.
[ii] Li MH, Bernabé E. Tooth wear and quality of life among adults in the United Kingdom. J Dent 2016 Dec 1;55: 48-53.
[iii] Carvalho TS, Lussi A, Jaeggi T, Gambon DL. Erosive tooth wear in children. Monogr Oral Sci 2014; 25: 262-278.
[iv] J Dent 2013; 41: 1007-1013.
[v] Loomans B, Opdam N, Attin T, Bartlett D, Edelhoff D, Frankenberger R, Benic G, Ramseyer S, Wetselaar P, Sterenborg B, Hickel R. Severe tooth wear: European consensus statement on management guidelines. J Adhes Dent. 2017 Mar 1;19 (2): 111-9.
