"7/12" patient touch point strategy: a novel method to increase patient attendance and recommendation.

The US dental system is not likely to see major expansions in dental care use in the foreseeable future. The rise of dental care utilization among low-income children as well as wealthy seniors did not offset flat dental utilization among adults since the Great Recession. Similarly in Spain, the increase in the number of dental practitioners surpasses the rate of population growth. Hence, in order to remain economically viable in this competitive market, one important aspect for every dental office is to retain patients besides attracting new ones. Patients may be lost to follow-up due to a number of factors, including a lack of attention from the dental practice or a lack of trust in the provider. The "7/12" patient touch point strategy of marketing builds consumer loyalty as a result of a strong patient-provider relationship. Furthermore, this method aims to facilitate the patient's decision to visit their dentist when it is time for preventative treatments. The purpose of this study was to measure the efficacy of a "7/12" patient touch point strategy when compared to the traditional annual recall with respect to number of active patients, percentage of word-of-mouth-recommended patients, and overall number of first-visit patients. We executed the relationship marketing concept through a novel "7/12" patient touch point approach, in which the patient was exposed to seven separate exposures in a period of 12 months. The efficacy of the "7/12" patient touch point was analyzed for 48 months across 10 clinics (24 months before and 24 months after the "7/12" strategy implementation). The "7/12" patient touch point strategy resources consisted of online and printed materials with a focus on oral health knowledge. fter analyzing the efficacy of the "7/12" patient touch point, we found an average increase of 86.91% in the number of active patients, 24.12% in the number of word-of-mouth-recommended patients, and 38.05% in the number of first visits across all clinics. This novel "7/12" patient touch point approach may be successful in increasing the retention of existing patients and generating new patients. Furthermore, this method promotes preventative care and oral health maintanance for patients and economic progress for the dental clinic

Burnout and study engagement among medical students at Sun Yat-sen University, China: A cross-sectional study.

This study aims to investigate burnout and study engagement among medical students at Sun Yat-sen University, China.A cross-sectional survey was conducted among undergraduate medical students of Sun Yat-sen University, China. A total of 453 undergraduate students completed a self-administered, structured questionnaire between January and February, 2016. Burnout and study engagement were measured using the Maslach Burnout Inventory-Student Survey (MBI-SS) and the UTRECHT Work Engagement Scale-Students (UWES-S), respectively. Subjects who scored high in emotional exhaustion subscale, high in cynicism subscale, and low in professional efficacy subscale simultaneously were graded as having high risk of burnout. Independent sample t tests and chi-square tests were used to compare the differences in burnout and work engagement between genders, majors, and grade levels.The means (standard deviations) of the MBI-SS subscales were 3.42 (1.45) for emotional exhaustion, 2.34 (1.64) for cynicism, and 3.04 (1.30) for professional efficacy. The means (standard deviations) of the UWES-S subscales were 3.13 (1.49) for vigor, 3.44 (1.47) for dedication and 3.00 (1.51) for absorption. Approximately 1 in 11 students experienced a high risk of burnout. There were no statistically significant gender differences in burnout and study engagement. There were also no statistically significant differences in burnout and study engagement subscales according to student major. Students in higher grades displayed increased burnout risk, higher mean burnout subscale score of cynicism, lower mean burnout subscale score of professional efficacy, and decreased mean study engagement subscale scores of dedication and absorption. There were strong correlations within study engagement subscales.Chinese medical students in this university experience a high level of burnout. Students at higher-grade level experience more burnout and decreased study engagement compared with students in lower level

Developing the Next Generation of Leaders in Oral Health

Peer Reviewedhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/153770/1/jddj0022033720137711tb05627x.pd

BigMouth: a multi-institutional dental data repository

Few oral health databases are available for research and the advancement of evidence-based dentistry. In this work we developed a centralized data repository derived from electronic health records (EHRs) at four dental schools participating in the Consortium of Oral Health Research and Informatics. A multi-stakeholder committee developed a data governance framework that encouraged data sharing while allowing control of contributed data. We adopted the i2b2 data warehousing platform and mapped data from each institution to a common reference terminology. We realized that dental EHRs urgently need to adopt common terminologies. While all used the same treatment code set, only three of the four sites used a common diagnostic terminology, and there were wide discrepancies in how medical and dental histories were documented. BigMouth was successfully launched in August 2012 with data on 1.1 million patients, and made available to users at the contributing institutions

Interprofessional Education in U.S. and Canadian Dental Schools: An ADEA Team Study Group Report

Peer Reviewedhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/153755/1/jddj002203372012769tb05381x.pd

Presence of management, entrepreneurship, leadership and marketing topics in the dental school curriculum in Brazil

INTRODUCTION : To analyse the presence and characteristics of curricular components related to management, entrepreneurship, leadership and marketing as part of the structure and teaching methods of undergraduate courses in dentistry in Brazil. MATERIALS AND METHODS : This is an observational study that used the Ministry of Education's Undergraduate Course Accreditation Platform, which included 424 undergraduate courses in Dentistry on the last date of collection (August 31 2019). The following items were analysed as follows: the existence of curricular components in relation to the proposed themes, the most recurring denominations of curricular components, minimum and maximum workload, mandatory/optional classification, theoretical/practical teaching condition and in which year the curricular components were inserted. RESULTS : 367/424 (86.6%) of dentistry courses in Brazil included at least one of the topics: management, entrepreneurship, leadership and marketing curricular components in their curriculum, whilst 57/424 (13.4%) did not have these curricular components in their curricular structure. The most frequent names were "Management" 99 (45.21%) and "Entrepreneurship" 80 (36.5%). There was a predominance of the “theoretical method” and the number of hours varied considerably, with the most common course hours between 40 and 60 h. The majority of curricular components were inserted in the third to fifth year and offered on a compulsory basis. CONCLUSION : Most curricular matrices of dentistry courses in Brazil had components related to the topics studied. However, due to the variety of curricular components' names, hours, periods of courses and different teaching methodologies, there is a need to redesign the teaching and learning process, defining educational and evaluation models with common curricular components.http://www.wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/ejehj2023Dental Management Science

BigMouth : development and maintenance of a successful dental data repository

DATA AVAILABILITY : The data underlying this article will be shared on reasonable request to the corresponding author.Few clinical datasets exist in dentistry to conduct secondary research. Hence, a novel dental data repository called BigMouth was developed, which has grown to include 11 academic institutions contributing Electronic Health Record data on over 4.5 million patients. The primary purpose for BigMouth is to serve as a high-quality resource for rapidly conducting oral health-related research. BigMouth allows for assessing the oral health status of a diverse US patient population; provides rationale and evidence for new oral health care delivery modes; and embraces the specific oral health research education mission. A data governance framework that encouraged data sharing while controlling contributed data was initially developed. This transformed over time into a mature framework, including a fee schedule for data requests and allowing access to researchers from noncontributing institutions. Adoption of BigMouth helps to foster new collaborations between clinical, epidemiological, statistical, and informatics experts and provides an additional venue for professional development.The National Library of Medicine.https://academic.oup.com/jamiaam2023Dental Management Science

Translating periodontal data to knowledge in a learning health system

BACKGROUND : A learning health system (LHS) is a health system in which patients and clinicians work together to choose care on the basis of best evidence and to drive discovery as a natural outgrowth of every clinical encounter to ensure the right care at the right time. An LHS for dentistry is now feasible, as an increased number of oral health care encounters are captured in electronic health records (EHRs). METHODS : The authors used EHRs data to track periodontal health outcomes at 3 large dental institutions. The 2 outcomes of interest were a new periodontitis case (for patients who had not received a diagnosis of periodontitis previously) and tooth loss due to progression of periodontal disease. RESULTS : The authors assessed a total of 494,272 examinations (new periodontitis outcome: n = 168,442; new tooth loss outcome: n = 325,830), representing a total of 194,984 patients. Dynamic dashboards displaying performance on both measures over time allow users to compare demographic and risk factors for patients. The incidence of new periodontitis and tooth loss was 4.3% and 1.2%, respectively. CONCLUSIONS: Periodontal disease, diagnosis, prevention, and treatment are particularly well suited for an LHS model. The results showed the feasibility of automated extraction and interpretation of critical data elements from the EHRs. The 2 outcome measures are being implemented as part of a dental LHS. The authors are using this knowledge to target the main drivers of poorer periodontal outcomes in a specific patient population, and they continue to use clinical health data for the purpose of learning and improvement. PRACTICAL IMPLICATIONS : Dental institutions of any size can conduct contemporaneous self-evaluation and immediately implement targeted strategies to improve oral health outcomes.US Department of Health and Human Services, National Institutes of Health, and National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research.https://jada.ada.orgam2023Dental Management Science

Caries risk documentation and prevention : eMeasures for dental electronic health records

BACKGROUND: Longitudinal patient level dataavailable in the electronic health record (EHR)allows for the development, implementation, and validations of dental quality measures (eMeasures). Objective We report the feasibility and validity of implementing two eMeasures. The eMeasures determined the proportion of patients receiving a caries risk assessment (eCRA) and corresponding appropriate risk-based preventative treatments for patients at elevated risk of caries (appropriateness of care [eAoC]) in two academic institutions and one accountable care organization, in the 2019 reporting year. METHODS: Both eMeasures define the numerator and denominator beginning at the patient level, populations’ specifications, and validated the automated queries. For eCRA, patients who completed a comprehensive or periodic oral evaluation formed the denominator, and patients of any age who received a CRA formed the numerator. The eAoC evaluated the proportion of patients at elevated caries risk who received the corresponding appropriate risk-based preventative treatments. RESULTS: EHR automated queries identified in three sites 269,536 patients who met the inclusion criteria for receiving a CRA. The overall proportion of patients who received a CRA was 94.4% (eCRA). In eAoC, patients at elevated caries risk levels (moderate, high, or extreme) received fluoride preventive treatment ranging from 56 to 93.8%. For patients at high and extreme risk, antimicrobials were prescribed more frequently site 3 (80.6%) than sites 2 (16.7%) and 1 (2.9%). CONCLUSION: Patient-level data available in the EHRs can be used to implement process-ofcare dental eCRA and AoC, eAoC measures identify gaps in clinical practice. EHR-based measures can be useful in improving delivery of evidence-based preventative treatments to reduce risk, prevent tooth decay, and improve oral health.U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, National Institutes of Health, National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research.http://www.thieme.com/books-main/clinical-informatics/product/4433-aci-applied-clinical-informaticsDental Management Science