For some time now the idea of whole team professionalism has been considered to be the way forward for excellent patient care and career satisfaction for dental care professionals. Over the years new initiatives such as clinical governance and DCP registration have been introduced, which have inched us forward with this aspiration.
In some practices their team ethos, along with the implementation of a wide range of team development initiatives, have allowed DCPs thrive and grow. Without exception these practices have reaped the benefits of their team’s development input. However, such practices are small in number compared to the greater majority in which very little has changed despite dental nurse registrations and the requirements it places on registrants.
The latest quality initiative which will impact on dental care providers, promises to have a massive impact on the development of whole team professionalism, that being Care Quality Commission registration. Beginning from April 2010, the CQC introduced a new registration system for all providers of health and social care. This new quality management system which includes all dental providers will be complete by April 2011 and means that in addition to standards set by professional bodies, dental practices now need to observe a set of 28 standards that outline the ideal outcome patients should experience when using a service set out in the CQC’s Essential standards of quality and safety.
The CQC standards are based on principles of quality management first developed in the US during the 1930s by Edwards-Deming a statistician, and further developed by a wide range of theorists such as Duran and Crosby. Although the principles began in the US they were further developed in the industrialisation of Japan following WW2 .The Japanese adaptations of the theory are known as Kaizen.
Total quality management is a comprehensive and structured approach to organizational management that seeks to improve the quality of products and services through ongoing refinements in response to continuous feedback. TQM processes are divided into four sequential categories: plan, do, check, and act (the PDCA cycle). In the planning phase, people define the problem to be addressed, collect relevant data, and ascertain the problem’s root cause; in the doing phase, people develop and implement a solution, and decide upon a measurement to gauge its effectiveness; in the checking phase, people confirm the results through before-and-after data comparison; in the acting phase, people document their results, inform others about process changes, and make recommendations for the problem to be addressed in the next PDCA cycle.
Kaizen is the Japanese for ‘improvement’ or ‘change for the better’ which refers to philosophy or practices that focus upon continuous improvement of processes supporting business and management. It has been applied in healthcare, psychotherapy, life-coaching, government, banking, and many other industries. When used in the business sense and applied to the workplace, kaizen refers to activities that continually improve all functions, and involves all employees. Kaizen influenced US business and quality management teachers and has since spread throughout the world.
To observe these detailed standards practices will need the involvement and cooperation of each team member. In particular this will make adding the role of treatment coordinator a sensible way to enable practices to allocate responsibility for the development of patient focused, quality initiatives. This will ensure that the practice is proactive in observing outcomes in respect of patient involvement and informed consent.
Providers need to decide which team members are best suited to work on each of the outcomes, for example,
Outcome 1 - involving and information, could be led by receptionists or treatment coordinators.
Outcome 2 - personalised care, treatment and support could be led by dentists and treatment coordinators.
Outcome 3 - safeguarding and safety could be lead by practice managers.
Outcome 4 - suitability of staffing could be led by providers and practice managers.
Outcome 5 - quality and management could be led by providers and practice managers.
Outcome 6 – for suitability of management the practice could take advice from a trusted source.
To successfully involve the team in ensuring these quality standards make a difference in your practice requires the development of a range of skills. Practice managers will need to organise the processes making them structured, all involving, recorded and followed through. If you need guidance on making this happen visit the website, www.dental-resource.com, where you will find an excellent tool created by Dentabyte to take you through five pain free steps to registration.
Glenys Bridges can be contacted on 0121 241 6693, email glenys@dental-resource.com or see www.dental-resource.com