Carrying out audits in dental practice is a fact of life. Too often they end up being carried out by one or two individuals, and put away in a folder for when the inspector comes. Whilst this may tick a box, it misses the point of what auditing is about – improving patient care.
What gets in the way of auditing the right way?
The biggest pressure I see when it comes to audits is time. Every dentist in the practice is busy with patients, making notes, doing CPD. Audits can get pushed down the priority list – collecting data, adding up numbers, and looking at trends – all take up valuable time.
Audits are a practice job aren’t they?
Dental nurses often end up being the ones carrying out audits, whilst the dentists are on holiday, or during cancellations. Practice managers also complete important topics to ensure that if the inspection comes they are prepared. Audits are completed and in the file, but does this on its own support improvement in patient care?
Get everyone involved
The best way to drive improvement is to take a whole team approach to audits. It’s important then when a topic, such as antimicrobial prescribing, is being looked at – the person doing collecting the data and making the judgements understands the standards and guidance. For many topics the practice manager, or a dental nurse, may be the right person. For others it’s important the other clinicians get involved to ensure that evaluation is robust and meaningful.
Once the data has been collected, it then needs collating, scoring, calculating, and then presenting in a way that conclusions can be drawn, and actions formulated.
How Dental Audit helps
Dental Audit is a collaborative tool. It’s designed to have more than one person working on an audit. Data is collated by default, and once the data collection is complete it calculates the scores, and provides an easy way to draw conclusions and make action plans. These can be readily downloaded as PDFs and easily shared with inspectors, and at staff meetings to ensure that the findings are taken into consideration.
Once you get to your next audit – Dental Audit will allow you to compare today’s results to previous audits, instantly demonstrating improvement or areas you still need to work on.
Audits become more than a box tick, they become a way to improve the quality of care you’re providing.