At Lindley dental we are committed to continuous improvement. To help us with this we are a Denplan Excel practice. To have this accreditation we have to exceed standard requirements of Dental Practices and continually review what we do. As an Excel practice we can now use Denplan’s on-line patient oral health risk assessment tool-DEPPA. As our regular patient’s come in we are gradually doing a DEPPA assessment with them.
So what is DEPPA?
It is an evidence based oral health risk report. The patient answers questions about their oral care and lifestyle; this is then put into the computer. Their dentist also answers questions relating to their patient’s previous treatment and current health status. Both lots are then submitted on line, very quickly the report comes back. Patients then have a risk assessment for four aspects of their oral health-Gum disease, tooth decay, tooth wear and oral cancer. This is represented visually using traffic light system, so red for high risk , green for low and so on.
We have found it very useful in showing patients where they currently are with their oral health and what areas may be of concern going forward. The report also gives suggestions as to what you can do to lower your risk.
We’ve had some interesting conversations following on from doing the score. Information has come out that we weren’t aware of, for example a long standing patient who had stopped using fluoride toothpaste following a friend’s advise.
So next time you are in for your oral health check you may be passed a clip board to “do a DEPPA”. We hope you find it useful.
