The Importance of Effective Communication Between the Dentist and Dental Lab

“Communication is the key to success in cosmetic dentistry/laboratory relations”⁵. To accurately fabricate dental restorations, effective communication needs to exist between the dental lab and the dentist to ultimately provide dental patients with the best dental care. The communication methods used by the dental lab to collaborate with the dentist is also a major factor that determines the success or failure of dental lab products.

“Prosthodontics is a discipline that requires a synergy between the dentist and dental technician in order to fabricate intraoral prostheses with acceptable fit, function and aesthetics,” reported by Berry et al.. Although restorative dentistry is first about restoring the patient’s oral health, and next the esthetic appearance; the patient’s growing demand for realistic esthetics and long-lasting restorations is challenging the industry to properly manufacture dental lab products that exhibit both attributes. Recreating esthetic details that mimic the patient’s natural teeth is crucial when “subtle details in texture, anatomy, and contours keep the ceramic restoration from looking contrived and can provide the element of ‘prefect imperfection’ that natural teeth exhibit”³. Precise design parameters, shade matching, and available tooth structures should all be effectively communicated by the clinician to the dental lab to achieve a highly esthetic restoration that will match the patient’s natural tooth contours and shades³.

The lab technician’s ability to match the exact shade to the patient’s teeth is a challenging aspect of communication; especially, when an increasing number of patients are demanding esthetically brilliant prostheses. Determining a precise shade (e.g., color, surface texture, shade characteristics) is first dependent on the clinician and must be effectively communicated to the lab technician. Exact shade communication is important because dental technicians are remotely located and usually never see the patient¹. In consonances with a study on color matching, Seal et al. reported “precise color communication is integral to the development of esthetic harmony and overall restorative success.” 

The communication methods used by the dental lab are major factors that influence the accuracy of dental lab products. With the development of software programs and web applications, dental labs can now use web content management systems (WCMS) to communicate to dental offices and manage laboratory cases at a faster and more accurate rate. As stated by Alshiddi, “Laboratory case management is a teamwork that should involve good communications between not only the dentist and the dental technician, but also other staff in the dental office (e.g., dental assistant and receptionist) and dental laboratory (e.g., laboratory owner, receptionist and delivery person)”⁵. When managing a high volume of dental lab cases, the lab must implement an effective content management system that will manage all of the dental cases coming from multiple forms of communication methods (e.g., hand-written lab authorization forms, telephone, email, electronic STL files, etc.). Equally important is the lab’s understanding of individual software requirements and design of the software that will essentially, if implicated correctly, improve communication and will ensure long term relationships between the dental office and dental laboratory⁵.

The dental laboratory must provide great customer service for dentists and their dental office personnel so all parties can work proficiently together. Providing excellent dental lab services will lead to satisfied clinicians and comfortable professional relationships between the clinician and dental technician/laboratory⁵. Collaborative technical advice on routine and complex dental cases is a very important service that dental laboratories should exceed at every time. The dental lab must have an effective logistic team to make sure dental cases are fabricated in time for the patient’s scheduled appointment.

Adequate skills of the dental laboratory and clinician along with collaborative teamwork through effective communication leads to high quality dental restorations. When problems arise from inaccurately fabricated prostheses, the patient will usually blame the dentist for the mishap. For this reason, it’s imperative dentists choose the best dental laboratory that can effectively communicate with their dental office to ensure satisfied patients every time and to ultimately provide better patient care. 

How Patients’ Decisions Influence Treatment Planning in Restorative Dentistry

As part of treatment planning, you as the dentist introduce options to your patients. After a relaxed conversation, a treatment plan is agreed upon between you and your dental patient. You use the best available research-based literature, clinical experience and patient opinions to guide your treatment decisions. As a dentist, you exercise substantial influence on which treatment method is chosen. Patients’ decisions can lead to less than ideal, though clinically adequate, treatment plans that give patient satisfaction over the long-term¹. Patients’ decisions are most affected by their relationship with you as their dentist over factors such as time, access, and cost¹. Health service providers may affect the decision-making process between you and your patient if specific treatments are favored or excluded on financial grounds. Kalsi and Hemmings recommends letters should be sent to patients explaining the “nature of all proposed options, including advantages and disadvantages, complications, success rates, biological and financial costs” and the consequences if no treatment is carried out¹.

Many psychological and social determinants influence patients’ values and decision-making when choosing a treatment plan in restorative dentistry. Frequently, a component of compromise between both parties in deemed acceptable even when clinical evidence indicates an alternative treatment to be more appropriate.

The best possible treatments should be based on the best available literature; however, the majority of treatment plans are greatly impacted by patients’ desires and expectations, which may not be based on sound knowledge¹. Patients’ wishes should be determined at the first treatment planning consultation to sort out whether they are realistic and possible within your own skill set, experience and knowledge¹. It is widely known that no dentist should perform any treatment that could harm a patient.

Time, number of appointments, use of anesthesia or sedative agents, pain and suffering are significant aspects to your patients’ decisions when selecting a treatment plan. You need to clarify biological and financial cost-benefit analyses to the patient¹. Also identify clinical factors, such as age, medical history and economics.

Patients seek dental treatment for three main reasons: comfort, aesthetics, and function. Patients are the real judge of whether their treatment is successful or not, so it is vital that they are pleased with their dental product¹. Their subjective assessments of a proposed treatment do not always correspond with their acceptance of evidence-based suggestions from clinical research literature. This assessment is contingent on the value patients accredit to a treatment. Aesthetic awareness can push patients to ask for destructive, biologically invasive work in situations where appearances could easily and equally be improved with lower risks of morbidity. For example, bleaching and bonding with veneers may “improve aesthetics with the same effect as full coverage crowns, with less tooth destruction and risk of dental pulp death and pain”¹.

Factors that affect patients’ decisions when deliberating treatment options:

•  Availability and access to care

•  Real cost per treatment option

•  Perceived value for money

•  Past dental history: positive or negative attitudes

•  Dentist’s confidence and competence

•  Patient’s confidence in dentist’s competence

•  Patient’s confidence in the treatment plan

•  Time and number of appointments

•  Perceived impact to quality of life

•  Pain and inconvenience associated with treatment¹

Interestingly, patients place more emphasis on your recommendations rather than on objective, evidence-based literature¹. If a dentist advocates a treatment, the patient is 2−21 times more likely to have it done¹. Comparatively, Kalsi and Hemmings found the endorsements made by evidence-based literature made no difference to a patient when choosing to proceed with a treatment. Confidence in your advice establishes the foundation of a professional relationship with the patient.

The significance of the dentist-patient relationship cannot be minimized, and a positive relationship is most likely to prompt a patient consenting for treatment. Patients put a lot of value on your recommendations. At the same time, patients want to play a collaborative role with you in the decision-making process. A treatment plan that is not evidence-based or approved with the patient runs the risk of losing a patient or, at worst, medico-legal action¹. However, treatment plans with an “element of compromise can be acceptable if, following full discussion with the patient, and taking into account all relevant factors, the benefits outweigh the disadvantages. This is the basis of informed consent”¹.

About the Company

Since 1991, Iverson Dental laboratories have provided dentists with high quality dental lab products and excellent dental lab services to ensure dental patients are completely satisfied with their restoration outcome. Iverson dental labs strongly believes in using high quality certified materials and authentic manufacturing components to fabricate their dental prosthetics given that material quality influences longevity of the restoration. Iverson values their skilled team of certified dental technicians because clinical evidence has shown adequate skills of the technician are important for the long-term success of a restoration. Iverson labs strive to be a great dental resource for dental professionals, offering training on CAD/CAM technologies in digital dentistry and advanced dental implant techniques at their cutting edge on-site operatory and training facility.

To find more helpful resources about restorative dentistry or to inquire about our dental lab services, please visit http://www.iversondental-labs.com or call us at (800) 334-2057.

References:

1. The influence of patients' decisions on treatment planning in restorative dentistry. (2013). Dental Update, 40, 698-710.

The Importance of Effective Communication Between the Dental Lab and Dentist to Ultimately Provide Better Patient Care

“Communication is the key to success in cosmetic dentistry/laboratory relations” ^[3]. The importance of good communication has been highlighted by a number of studies ^[3]. Effective communication between the dentist and the dental laboratory is critical when fabricating well-designed, high quality dental restorations to ultimately provide patients with the best dental care. The effectiveness of the communication methods used by the dental lab to collaborate with the dental office is also a major factor that determines the success or failure of dental lab products.

As reported by Berry et al., “prosthodontics is a discipline that requires a synergy between the dentist and dental technician in order to fabricate intraoral prostheses with acceptable fit, function and aesthetics.” Although restorative dentistry is first about restoring the teeth’s function and oral health of the patient, and next the esthetic appearance; the patient’s growing demand for realistic esthetics and long-lasting restorations is challenging the industry to meet these high expectations by producing dental products that exhibit both attributes. Recreating esthetic details that mimic the patient’s natural teeth is crucial when “subtle details in texture, anatomy, and contours keep the ceramic restoration from looking contrived and can provide the element of ‘prefect imperfection’ that natural teeth exhibit” ^[4]. Precise design parameters, shade matching, and available tooth structures should all be decided and effectively communicated by the clinician to the dental lab in order to successfully achieve a highly esthetic restoration that will match the patient’s natural tooth contours and shades ^[4].

The lab technician’s ability to transfer exact shade matching, along with the ability of the clinician to communicate accurate tooth shades, is a challenging aspect of communication; especially, when an increasing number of patients are demanding esthetically brilliant prostheses. Determining a precise shade (e.g., color, surface texture, shade characteristics) is first dependent on the clinician and must be effectively communicated to the lab technician in order for the lab tech to achieve exact shade matching for the final restoration. Exact shade communication is important between the technician and dentist because dental techs are remotely located and usually never see the patient ^[1].  In consonances with a study on color matching, Seal et al. reported, “precise color communication is integral to the development of esthetic harmony and overall restorative success.” 

The methods used by the dental lab to communicate with the dental practice are also major factors that influence the accuracy of dental lab products. With the development of software programs and effective web applications, dental labs can now use web content management systems (WCMS) to communicate to the dental office and manage laboratory cases at a faster and more accurate rate. As stated by Alshiddi, “Laboratory case management is a teamwork that should involve good communications between not only the dentist and the dental technician, but also other staff in the dental office (e.g., dental assistant and receptionist) and dental laboratory (e.g., laboratory owner, receptionist and delivery person)” ^[3]. When managing a large number of dental lab cases, the lab must implement an effective content management system that will manage all of the dental cases coming from multiple forms of communication methods (e.g., hand-written lab authorization forms, telephone, email, electronic STL files, etc.). Equally important is the lab’s understanding of individual software requirements and design of the software that will essentially, if implicated correctly, improve communication and will ensure long term relationships between the dental office and dental laboratory ^[3].

The dental laboratory must provide great customer service for dentists and their dental office personnel so all parties can work together proficiently. Providing excellent dental lab services will lead to satisfied clinicians and comfortable professional relationships between the clinician and dental technician/laboratory ^[3]. Collaborative technical advice on routine and complex dental cases is a very important service that dental laboratories should exceed at every time. The dental lab must have an effective logistic team to make sure dental cases are fabricated in time for the patient’s scheduled appointment, also ensuring patients are satisfied with their dental care services.

“By far my happiest [Dentists] with the happiest patients are the ones that communicate with the laboratory and view it as part of a team effort to achieve the right result for the patient,” stated one dental technician in a study on the communication methods used between the lab and dentist ^[1].

Along with adequate skills of the dental laboratory and clinician, good teamwork through effective communication between the dentist and dental lab leads to high quality dental restorations with excellent fit, function and esthetics. When problems arise from inaccurately fabricated prostheses, the patient will usually blame the dentist/dental office for the mishap. For this reason, its imperative dentists choose the best dental laboratory that can effectively communicate with their dental office to ensure satisfied patients every time and to ultimately provide better patient care.

About the Company:

Since 1991, Iverson Dental laboratory has provided dentists with high quality dental lab products and excellent dental lab services to ensure their dental patients are completely satisfied with the restoration outcome. Iverson dental labs strives to be a great dental resource for dentists by offering training on digital dentistry and new dental implant techniques at their high-tech operatory and training facility. Iverson dental labs strongly believes in using high quality certified materials and authentic manufacturing components to fabricate their dental restorations. Iverson also strongly believes in having a knowledgeable team of certified dental technicians because clinical evidence has shown the “skills of the clinician and technician are important for the long-term success of a restoration” ^[1].

Reference:

1. Berry, J., Nesbit, M., Saberi, S., & Petridis, H. (2014). Communication methods and production techniques in fixed prosthesis fabrication: A UK based survey. Part 1: Communication methods. BDJ Br Dent J.

2. Afsharzand, Z., Rashedi, B., & Petropoulos, V. (n.d.). Communication Between the Dental Laboratory Technician and Dentist: Work Authorization for Fixed Partial Dentures. J Prosthodontics Journal of Prosthodontics, 123-128.

3. Weston, J., & Haupt, E. (n.d.). Creating Aesthetic Success Through Proper Clinician and Laboratory Technical Communication. Dental Clinics of North America, 371-382.

4. Seal, M., Talukdar, P., Srivastav, V., & Pendharkar, K. (2014). Colour Matching: A Review of Conventional and Contemporary Dental Colour Matching Systems. International Journal of Oral Care and Research, 2(5), 47-53.