Dental School Inefficiency Gives Hints to Increase Efficiency in Practice

December 4th, 2012 | Posted by President in Blog

A lot of time at the school is wasted in searching for Perio residents who are not always in the same place, differ from day-to-day and wear the same clinic gowns as the students and faculty. Students waste an average of 15-20 minutes per patient searching for residents for consults and case starts, etc. An easy solution for this is to have residents wear unique, consistent gowns so that they can be easily distinguished from all of the other people in clinic.

How does this translate to practice efficiency?

15-20 minutes per patient looking for something is unreasonable and would not be expected in a private office. However, even a minute per patient adds up to a lot of time wasted per patient, per week. There are plenty of objects in a dental office that are not always in the same place and are difficult to distinguish at a glance. Having consistency with room setups leads to less time wasted. Have a curing light in each room, an intraoral camera in each room, an extra battery pack for a light in each room, etc. means that no time is wasted running around looking for things.

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