Increasing clinical activity in undergraduate education – benefits of an Oral Health Alliance.

Abstract

Objectives: In an innovation to deliver increased excellence in teaching, research and clinical dental practice the University of Queensland (UQ) and Metro North Hospital & Health Services, the largest Queensland Health government service providing public healthcare to around 900,000 eligible patients, formed a new conjoint Oral Health Alliance (OHA) in January 2017 based at UQ’s award-winning 170-dental chair Oral Health Centre in Brisbane. A specific aim of the OHA was to increase the number of patient care episodes available to undergraduate dental students during their clinical years. Methods: A retrospective review of completed courses of patient care in 7 OHC dental clinics was carried out for the calendar months January to October (inclusive); during this period approximately 210 undergraduate dental students were timetabled for 4-5 sessions per week for clinical training. Direct comparison was made between 2016, the last year of sole UQ clinic administration, with 2017 as the first full operational year of the OHA during which significant recruitment to clinical supervisor, dental assistant and administrative posts occurred. Results: The number of patient treatments were seen to steadily increase during both years, as students became more proficient practitioners, with more treatments completed in the latter months of each year. Overall, 26,934 completed patient episodes were recorded in 2016, whilst this rose significantly to 38,743 in 2017; a 1.5 times increase in clinic activity (p=0.0025; student t-test). Conclusions: Improving access for eligible dental patients not only increases the experience of dental students during their clinical training, but improves efficiency and access to public dental services. In the future, the OHA will enhance not only general dental service delivery but will also increase eligible patient access to a wider range of specialist services as a coordinated development of UQ postgraduate dental training in the School of Dentistry.