I can still remember when the standard entry in a brown cardboard NHS case note card for a patient examination and cleaning was ‘exam SP’ .
For a 15 minute appointment which paid £25 we wrote down 6 characters in the notes.
If you qualified much later than me try and imagine that.
The protection that is required for ourselves and the treatment of patients now is almost unfathomable.
And so, probably when you’re almost 50 and you’ve come from 6 characters for £25 to a world where enough is never enough to protect ourselves from the risk of losing our ability to earn a living, it’s probably time to give up and stop…
Or, turn the threat into an opportunity.
So, last Friday I was due to travel 60 minutes to a practice that I go to, on occasion, to provide consultation services.
I’ve worked with the practice owner for some years and we have a clear understanding.
I travel to the practice and see patients that they’ve requested that I see to provide consultations and if the patients are interested to undergo implant treatment and if it’s appropriate for that to happen then we invite them back to our practice for a full assessment and diagnostic appointment prior to consenting them for treatment that may be appropriate.
On completion of surgical phases of treatment they’re referred back to the practitioner for reconstruction.
So far patients have really appreciated this services and so has the practice that we provide this for and so have we but just before last Friday the four patients that were booked in to see me dropped to two as two were self-isolating and could not attend the treatment.
Following on from that there was a discussion as to whether I should travel across for two patients or whether we should reschedule the day, then the lightbulb came on and I thought “why don’t we do this as a zoom consultation?’ (Which we do offer for some of our patients at the practice on occasion but have not formalised completely a process for yet).
And so, it was agreed that I would see two patients for implant consultations via zoom at 10am and 11am on Friday.
Bearing in mind that I would have left the house at 6.45am to travel to this practice to be ready to see the patients on that day and two would have not turned up and I would have seen two patients and then I would have travelled 75 minutes back.
And so, at 10am I logged on to see the first patient with the material that the practice had sent and we carried out a non-clinical examination initial implant consultation for a patient and both decided that an implant reconstruction for a single unit for this patient would be most appropriate, provided that the full clinical examination that would be inevitable and the diagnostic process confirmed that.
The patient booked to see me for a full diagnostic appointment including CT scan, intraoral scan, digital wax-up and guide production and provisionally booked a surgical appointment for the implant surgery.
That process took 22 minutes.
Generally my consultations are 1 hour long but in a Zoom consultation things are faster and the patient was delighted with this and the appointment had been made and the treatment plan had been formulated on my cloud based software (Dentally).
During those 22 minutes I’d formulated a plan while my screen was shared with the patient so they could see exactly what I was talking about.
I was able to email that treatment plan immediately to the patient to make their appointment and confirm their appointment by SMS message and to dictate an updated email letter for the general dental practitioner.
Within 30 minutes every piece of admin was done, the patient had their treatment plan and their appointments were made and they knew that they had the opportunity to cancel or postpone appointments should anything come up in the information that they would read following the consultation.
More than this though, the consultation was recorded on Zoom and stored in the cloud.
At any point I can return back and revisit that consultation and so can the patient to show that we both did what we said we did but even more than that, (I discovered a little bit later) there is a feature to zoom which is included in your account which then moves the process on even more.
Because I had so much time on Friday compared to travelling to the practice and travelling back and the work that would have been involved in that, I had time to ride my new WattBike atom in the practice whilst looking out of the window at about 12 o’clock.
Whilst I was doing my session it struck me that there must be a plug-in software for Zoom which would transcribe a Zoom consultation into writing that I could cut and paste and put in the notes.
It turns out that there isn’t a plug-in but it is actually a locked in feature of Zoom for a paid account.
The patients case notes for a discussion consultation appointment are actually produced by the video itself.
Just think about that for a minute.
And so, all of a sudden the world has changed again.
I had a discussion with the practice that I usually travel to and we’ve agreed that this is a far, far better service for their patients than me actually travelling to the practice and I’ve booked to see the two patients who were isolating as soon as possible.
If you’re not considering the use of technology in any business that you’re in (to this degree), then you’re lost and will be left.
I’m off to the future now.
Hopefully I’ll see you there.
Blog Post Number - 2827
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