There are many different aspects to running a successful dental practice. The quality of the clinical work provided is of course hugely important, as is the commercial side of business with marketing and PR exercises increasingly apparent in the market. Alongside these though is the less glamorous, but equally crucial task of administration. Without successful administration, a dental practice simply couldn’t operate, and a subdivision of this is the ordering and processing of equipment and stock.
When the management of stock is not properly organised it can have a huge impact on the running of a practice. If stock is over-ordered it could lead to a problem with a practice’s immediate cashflow, or even worse wasting money with materials going out of date before being used. On the flip side if there aren’t adequate supplies it could mean having to pay extra for immediate delivery of items from suppliers or the disaster of directly affecting patient care by having to cancel treatments until the goods arrive. The damage something like this could do to a practice’s reputation is potentially far worse than any immediate financial loss. Though that is an extreme example, I would be surprised if most practice’s inventory systems ran as efficiently as they might do. Sometimes you don’t know something is broken until you have the opportunity to fix it.
Temple Street Dental, in Oxford, appeared to be an example of a successfully run practice. The five-surgery practice included four dentists, two hygienists, one implantologist, an oral surgeon consultant and three dental nurses the clinical expertise on offer was certainly impressive, and with a full-time treatment co-ordinator to help patients understand procedures it appeared the clinical side of the practice was running as well as could be. The practice manager had an assistant to help with the business side of things, and the slick surgery design and modern looking reception area gave the impression to patients of a practice without any problems.
However, behind the scenes the staff were aware that it wasn’t the well-oiled efficient machine it could be. The issue was stock – expired, lost, incorrect, wrongly placed, disorganised stock. Being a large and busy practice, it had proven difficult to track daily product use and there was no real system in place to ensure there were adequate levels of the stock required when required.
The disorganised nature of the stock management meant that miscommunication and human error were common occurrences; to put it simply, it was a mess.
With no thought given to the organisation of storage, space had become an issue, and the simple task of preparing items needed for the next patient had become a game of hide and seek. Not only did this slow procedures down, it also meant the team could not clearly see what needed ordering, this led to both over-stocking and a shortage of essentials. Out of date stock became plentiful, as did incorrect items. Realising that changes needed to be made, the practice decided to install the PlanOrder system from Plandent.
Temple Street’s practice manager Louise Normington explained: “We were tired of the sporadic and unmanageable ordering and laugh thinking back to some of the issues we used to face. The PlanOrder system offered order and regulation and that’s exactly what we needed.”
The fully automated inventory management system has dramatically changed life in the practice. Human error has been removed from the ordering process, and the laborious task of manual stock taking is also a thing of the past. This has freed up valuable time and the hassle of dealing with mountains of paperwork. Installation took a single day, and after a training session the following morning the Temple Street team were up and running with a fully automated inventory management system and a new shelving unit for the organised storage of goods.
Both Louise and her assistant, Deborah Morris, were initially concerned that the automated system would leave them isolated should they encounter any problems, but these worries have long since passed and they explained how reassured they have been by the service provided by Plandent and in particular their local representative Zeta Saxton.
Louise and Deborah both said they would recommend the system to others. The benefits in cost, time and space are a huge part in the reason why. It makes running a practice easier and less stressful; but more generally it offers peace of mind that everything is in place for the smooth operation of the clinical side of the practice.