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science and practice Creating a ﬁve-star dental practice The various skill sets needed to deliver clinical services at the highest level Dr William Cheung (upper row, third from right) with his team. By Dr William Cheung, Hong Kong Introduction n Dentists are not only health care professionals but also health care professional service provid- ers. The word “service” is import- ant to remember because it changes our perspective to focus on the why it is important to look after the overall well-being of our patients and not just their oral health needs. Traditional dental education places great emphasis on teaching us how to develop our clinical skills, but neglects to teach us how to look after our patients’ psycho- logical needs. Furthermore, we How hotels are rated The word “hospitality” comes from the word “hospitable”, which means welcoming guests with warmth and generosity. Hotels are rated according to their facilities and service. In technology terms, this means hardware and software. Facil- ities, such as the types of rooms and “There is much we can learn from the typical service industry, such as hotels and restaurants.” needs of our patients as we treat them. Our education at dental school teaches us to take care of our patients’ oral health needs; however, patients have other phys- ical and psychological needs too that we cannot overlook. Most pa- tients are scared to see the dentist, and it is our responsibility to help them overcome their fear. This is an important way to build rapport with our patients. When they are comfortable coming to see us and happy with our service, they will gladly refer their family and friends to us. Fostering rapport is an im- portant practice builder. This is need another skill set to run a suc- cessful dental practice. A dental of- fice is a business entity and so we need to learn certain business skill to run a successful practice. There- fore, in addition to acquiring good clinical management skills, we need to develop good patient man- agement skills and business man- agement skills to create a five-star dental practice. Patient manage- ment is customer service in the business world. Since we are ser- vice professionals, there is much we can learn from the typical ser- vice industry, such as hotels and restaurants. suites, variety of restaurants and rec- reational facilities, like fitness cen- tres, swimming pools and spas, all represent the hardware. The soft- ware component is represented by guest services. Five-star service is ex- ecuted and presented in a flawless manner so that the guest is pampered by a professional, attentive team of staff. When we translate these into the dental practice that means up-to- date treatment facilities, equipment and instruments, as well as how we treat our patients as a team, including front-office staff, back-office support- ing staff, chairside assistants and dentists. The entire team should 6 39th Asia Paciﬁc Dental Congress 2017 share the common objective of mak- ing the experience of the patients a positive one every time. The hardware The hardware of a dental prac- tice is the office set-up, which in- cludes basic renovation, office decor, equipment, instruments and materi- als. With the advancement of tech- nology, we need to consider how we should integrate technology into our practices, keeping in mind that tech- nology is constantly evolving with new innovations. For instance, in ad- dition to conventional equipment, such as dental units, we now have available to us advanced technology, such as operating microscopes, digi- tal intra-oral cameras, digital radio- graphic imaging (including intra- oral radiographs, dental pan- oramic tomograms and CBCT), soft- and hard-tissue lasers, and intra-oral scanners with CAD/CAM milling de- vices. It is important to understand that not every office needs all the lat- est equipment; it depends on what type of treatment we perform the most and how technology can be beneficial to the overall production. It is also important to calculate the cost and benefits before deciding to purchase any piece of high-tech equipment because some are ex- pensive not only to purchase but also to maintain. Therefore, we need to decide whether to buy and when to do so. One thing to keep in mind is that the office should be set up to integrate any technologically ad- vanced equipment when we decide to buy. That means having the nec- essary space, computer hardware and software, and wiring network to support such equipment. In other words, we need to plan ahead during the stage of office design and renova- tion. It is also important to pay atten- tion to details when it comes to of- fice design and decor. It is necessary to plan carefully regarding the size and location of each room to maxi- mise workflow efficiency. Last but not least, the reception area should be designed with patients’ comfort in mind; this is the area where pa- tients first encounter the practice. Therefore, it is important to impress them when they first arrive. The software The software of a dental prac- tice refers to how we treat our cus- tomers. This is not only the respon- sibility of the service providers, such as the dentists and the hygien- ists; it is very much a team effort of the entire staff. Patients’ experi- ence of the dental practice starts when they make their first contact with the practice, usually when they call for their initial appoint- ment as a new patient. Therefore,

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