NSW Health WSLHD Safety & Quality Account 2020-21

Oral Health Services OUR CARE AT A GLANCE

How our consumers rated our services Average Experience Scores for 2022-2023

SCORE: 87 Overall Patient Experience Score.

SCORE: 90 I was treated with kindness and respect.

127,857 Occasions of Service

SCORE: 93 I am likely to recommend this service to my family and friends.

SCORE: 80 I was involved in decisions about my care.

Improving Patient Engagement Patient feedback is crucial in healthcare as it provides insights into the patient experience, helps identify areas for improvement, and empowers patients to be active participants in their own healthcare journeys. To improve the amount of patient surveys completed within Oral Heath, the Dental Informatics Unit has implemented an initiative which sends an SMS one day after treatment to remind patients to give feedback on the service provided. The SMS also has a link to the patient survey. The aim of this project was to increase the number of patient experience surveys by 100%. Since implementation, an average of 250 survey responses have been received per week. The response rate per month has increased to as high as 1,400% compared prior to the implementation of this project.

Detecting Dental Disease in Children A pilot study was developed which used photographs taken by parents to virtually detect a form of tooth decay called early childhood caries (ECC) for children under 6 years of age. As 81% of Australian’s use a smart phone, the aim of this study was to use digital technology to enable disease detection and to compare virtual assessments of ECCs to in-person visual assessments. The study demonstrated that photographs and visual assessments to identify ECCs were similarly accurate. Nearly all patients’ urgent dental needs were managed successfully without an in-person visit for a dental consultation. This is the first study which used virtual care for pediatric dental services and demonstrates the possibility of using virtual care to improve oral health literacy in children living in rural and remote areas. Ensuring Safe Patient Care To ensure safe care in our oral health services and promote infection prevention and control, glass partitions were installed in all open plan dental clinics in September 2022. These partitions provided a physical barrier between patient treatment areas while maintaining the natural light in the clinic space. An added benefit was the decrease in noise in the clinics. They also provided patients with an increased level of privacy when discussing their treatment with their clinician.

Paediatric Dentistry Team winning award for their project Detecting Dental Disease in Children from Intra-Oral Photographs

Safety & Quality Account 2022-2023 Western Sydney Local Health District

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