Hygienists and therapists still face an identity crisis

Despite national registration being in place since 2010, a system that sees all dental practitioners on the same register, plus a continual expansion of their duties, dental hygienists, dental therapists and oral health therapists still face an identity crisis, in, for want of a better term, professional standing.

Nowhere is this more evident than on dental practice websites, according to Joseph Allbeury, publisher of Auxiliary and the Your Dentist online find-a-dentist service located at www.dentist.com.au.

"Dental hygienists, dental therapists and oral health therapists now number in the thousands in Australia and a great deal of the dental public has been treated by one of these skilled professionals," Mr Allbeury said. "Yet there continues to be an apparent divide in many practices.

"Nowhere do we see this more than on dental practice websites. As the publisher of www.dentist.com.au, a directory of every practitioner in Australia, we are constantly trawling the web to locate people. This means that every day we look at practice websites and continually, we see dentists represented as Dr John Smith and Dr Barbara Jones and then there is Jenny, Sally and Leanne from the hygiene team.

"I know that Madonna, Kylie and Beyonce have all ditched their surnames for greater notoriety, but somehow this doesn't translate to the dental profession.

"If I'm a potential new patient, then more and more my first impression of your practice will be formed by looking at your website. I will know who your practitioners are and a great deal of other information. When I subsequently call up for an appointment, I will be expecting it to be made with a practitioner I feel I already 'know' because I've seen them on your website.

"I also want to rest assured that I will be being treated by a professionally trained and fully qualified practitioner. However, if practices don't even accord all of their practitioners the courtesy of a surname, then from the outset, in my mind, the credibility of the hygienist, therapist or oral health therapist that you may want me to accept treatment from is undermined. If a patient starts to question this, immediately doubt has been introduced and credibility damaged.

"We also see websites with a page for 'dentists' and a separate page for 'staff' or 'the team'. On the latter pages, hygienists, therapists and oral health therapists are often grouped with dental assistants and reception and administrative staff with no clear demarcation.

"Again, this diminishes the standing of your qualified, registered care givers by inferring they are less qualified than a dentist to treat patients and that they are no different to other staff members who are not registered and hence permitted to administer primary care. This both confuses patients and affects the morale of the non-dentist practitioners."

Mr Allbeury said that this situation often developed because practices commission a website without defining clear goals that this valuable tool should achieve.

"I think a lot of dentists and people purporting to know how to design websites for dentists simply copy what others have done and this approach is propagated because it is a logical representation of the structure of a practice.

"Web designers often do things that make their clients feel good, like prominently presenting information about the practice principals on its own page when this doesn't necessarily help and often hinders the real goals of the website which, amongst other things, should help increase patient flow to all practitioners (particularly since the principal is often fully booked already).

"It is important to have a website but it mustn't be any old website. It's a tool that should have a purpose and that purpose should be defined early on so that the site can be designed accordingly.

"Amongst other things, your website should be designed to market the services of the practice to patients and potential patients and in marketing, perception is very much the reality.

"Whereas there may well be a carefully crafted management hierarchy within the practice, it is of little consequence to anyone outside the practice and hence has no place on your website.

"The reality, from a patient's perspective, is that the structure they see is one of people who deliver primary care on the one hand and everyone else on the other.

"Your website should seek to promote dentist and non-dentist practitioners equally to patients because these are the people who will be providing their care. I stress that perception is reality here and whilst a dentist and an hygienist, for instance, have different levels of training and an hygienist can only provide a subset of the procedures a dentist can, these 'technicalities' should be handled internally by the practice rather than the patient looking at your website.

"If I call up your practice for the first time and specifically ask for an appointment for a clean and you tell me I've been booked in with someone I don't see on your website, then my immediate reaction is that that person must be new to your practice... and 'new' always makes me worry!

"However, if you tell me I will be seeing 'Jennifer Brown' on Tuesday and I look on your website and see information about Jennifer Brown alongside ALL the other practitioners, then I am completely comfortable. I can read that Jennifer Brown is a dental hygienist who is specifically skilled in a range of procedures that encompass what I have asked for. Now I am very happy!"

Mr Allbeury stressed that one of the goals of your website should be to encourage patients to commence a relationship with your practice and should concentrate on facilitating that above all else.

"Regardless of the 'pecking' order within the practice and how important certain people want to make themselves appear, websites are no place for this.

"Practice principals need to understand that websites are designed to promote the services of the practice and facilitate a connection between patient and practitioner that results in treatment. When a patient looks at your website, it should begin instilling trust that if they use your services, then they will receive quality care by a team of skilled professionals.

"As a practice owner, your registered and fully qualified clinicians that deliver treatment - and as a result produce revenue - should be given due standing, both internally and externally to the practice.

"This is not to in any way diminish the valuable role that every other staff member of the practice fulfils, rather it is instilling trust and confidence in prospective patients considering treatment from the practice's registered practitioners."

Mr Allbeury said that equally, hygienists, therapists and oral health therapists should be more forthright in defining and asserting their roles.

"As registered dental practitioners, hygienists, therapists and oral health therapists should be proud of the valuable role they fulfil in the dental team and ensure that the dentists they work with are supportive of the proper promotion and representation of all its members."

www.dentist.com.au allows the public to search for dental practices and dental practitioners anywhere in Australia. The goal is to include information on every registered practitioner to facilitate greater access to treatment for the Australian public.

Every practice is listed at no cost and practitioners are then linked to the practices where they work. Patients typically search geographically by entering the suburb where they want to find-a-dentist, but they can also specifically search for practices with a dental hygienist, dental therapist or oral health therapist.

"There are now thousands of dental hygienists, dental therapists and oral health therapists working in Australia and we want to connect all of them to the practices where they work," Mr Allbeury said. "There is no cost associated with being included on www.dentist.com.au and it increases the awareness and standing of hygienists, therapists and oral health therapists in the eyes of the public and the dental community at large.

For more info, see www.dentist.com.au or call (02) 9929-1900.