Australasian Dentist Issue 92

CATEGORY AUSTRALASIAN DENTIST 135 By Robyn Russell How to fully utilise OHTs in a multidisciplinary practice O ral health therapists have been used as mid-level dental practitioners inpublic dental practice for many years – mostly utilised in a multi-disciplinary model to provide cost-effective comprehensive care. Although their unique skillset has not been truly adopted in private general dental practice mostly because the corporate model hasn’t embraced the intangible metrics associated with mid-level dental practitioners. The three main paradigms that need to be considered when utilising OHTs in a truly multidisciplinary practice include: 1. Mindset 2. Clinical roles 3. Metrics Challenges Yes, there can be challenges when employing and working with OHTs. One must consider the scheduling obstacles and create opportunity for this to happen. The costs associated with hiring OHTs, and working out tangible Vs intangible metrics. These challenges are underpinned by negative mindsets. A mindset such as: “No one else can do this work as well as I can.” Many of us think we need to do it all.That no one can do what you can do, or that they cannot do it as well as you. Some dentists, team members or practice managers just want the control it is how they like it to work. It is imperative that if you want to grow, at some point you must let go. You can’t achieve growth unless you let go of something else. Negative mindset number two also comes into play. Some believe that, “I don’t see the value in treating periodontal patients and children.” The underpinning of this mindset is the thinking that having a periodontal program and paedodontic clinicians isn’t a productive or important part of the practice. Often dentists don’t’ enjoy treating children and don’t particularly want them in the practice. As we all know, periodontal disease is a very under-diagnosed condition which has health consequences. Alternatively, if you treat children, you are often given the opportunity to treat the whole family. The kicker negative mindset is the idea that, “If OHTs want to do restorations they should be a dentist”. There is still an assumption out there in the world of dentistry that because an OHT isn’t a dentist, they’re just not as good. If an OHT wants to do fillings, there can be an arrogance out there that they should go back to university to become a dentist. This mindset illustrates fear! This can challenge the dentist’s own scope If the OHT does Robyn Russell INTENTIONAL PRAC ITI NER the fillings, what will the dentist do? This is where the dentist can do so many things: the procedures that are outside of the OHTs scope, those higher production procedures. Using the whole team to the maximum of their scope allows all clinicians within the team to reduce repetition and boredom, improves career satisfaction, encourages a growth mindset, enhances the ceiling of scope, and allows the team to become master clinicians in their field. u About the author Robyn Russell is a Co-Founder of Dental Health Network, an independent provider of CPD events for dentists & Oral Health Therapists, focused on teaching our unique approach to the multi-disciplinary private practice, where all team members work to the ceiling of their scope.