Time to complete contemporary dental procedures - estimates from a cross-sectional survey of the dental team.

BACKGROUND: There are few contemporary studies on the time taken to complete dental procedures, those most heavily relied on in the United Kingdom date back to 1999. OBJECTIVES: This work aimed to establish how long members of the dental team took to complete specific dental procedures, relevant to their scope of practice. METHODS: Data were collected via a purposive sample of 96 dentists, dental hygienists/therapists and dental nurses. Via an online survey, participants were asked to state the mean, minimum and maximum time they estimated that they took to complete individual dental procedures. RESULTS: The mean time taken to complete procedures common to both dentists and dental hygienists/therapists ranged from 3.7 to 4 min respectively for clinical note reading prior to seeing patients to 30.1 and 28 min to undertake root surface debridement. There were no significant differences between the time taken by dentists and dental hygienists/therapists to treat adult patients. However, in all but one procedure, dental hygienists/therapists reported taking longer (p = 0.04) to treat child patients. CONCLUSIONS: The data provided here represent an up to date assessment of the time taken to complete specific tasks by different members of the dental team. These data will be of value to service planners and commissioners interested in evolving a dental care system that employs a greater degree of skill-mix and preventively oriented care.

The development and application of a chairside oral health risk and need stratification tool in general dental services.

OBJECTIVE: To describe the development and application of the Assessment of Clinical Oral Risks and Needs (ACORN) stratification tool based on a traffic light system in National Health Service (NHS) general dental services (GDS) Wales, UK. MATERIALS AND METHODS: This was a secondary analysis of routinely-collected dental care data. All courses of treatment provided in dental practices participating in NHS GDS Reform Programme between July 2018 and September 2019, in which an ACORN assessment and age were recorded were included in the analysis. RESULTS: A total of 236,490 subjects contributed 339,933 courses of treatment during the study period. 'Amber' and 'red' ACORN outcomes were associated with more courses of treatment per annum than 'green' outcomes. Outcomes indicating an increased risk of decay or other dental problems were associated with a greater likelihood of several operative treatment items. Patients at greater risk of poor periodontal health were more likely to receive extractions and dentures than low-risk patients. Patients were most likely to either remain in the same ACORN outcome categories or move to a healthier state between assessments. CONCLUSION: More research is required to understand the utility of the ACORN tool in risk communication and behaviour change.