Oral Health | Clinical and Risk Asessment | Clinical priorities

Clinical priorities
Session overview
Description
This session describes how to develop a prioritisation approach for treatment planning. It outlines how to grade presenting conditions, identify priorities and how to approach the timing of interventions.

Learning objectives
By the end of this session you will be able to:

• describe the structure for grading presenting conditions
• identify the priorities when developing a care plan
• discuss the rationale for the timing of interventions

Prerequisites
Before commencing this session you should be able to:

• perform a competent patient history
• recognise the appropriate investigations required
• make a definitive problem list and treatment plan

Dentistry is becoming more complex by the year. These changes reflect the demographic trends which affect society as a whole. In general, patients are retaining all or some of their teeth for longer.

The challenges of treatment planning in normal day-to-day to dentistry are further exacerbated by the development of more complex restorative and oral health issues associated with age. An ageing population presents increasing medical conditions, making planning even more complex. This brings increasing challenges of treatment planning and a need to exercise a range of treatment planning and prioritisation skills.

The 1st example of organised prioritisation was described by Baron Dominique Jean Larrey, Napoleon's chief surgeon; when faced with a flood of battlefield casualties, he had to devise a system of triage (meaning to sort) prioritising their management. Many of his principles underpin the approach to treatment planning for health and dentistry.