Rise of blood pressure value in young patients at first visit at a dental university hospital in Japan

Improving Patient Well-Being as a Broader Perspective in Dentistry

Patient well-being encompasses the physical, mental, psychological, and social health of an individual. To adequately treat an individual and increase their quality of life, whole-person, patient-centred care needs to be utilised. This review aims to concisely summarise ways to improve patients' well-being through and in dentistry. Oral health is tied to one's quality of life through oral function, overall health, self-perception, social acceptance, and social interaction. These relationships demonstrate the importance of utilising oral health to increase patient quality of life, unify health professions in patient treatment, use preventative medicine, and empower patients about their health. To do so, the dental profession can increase the scope of practice to provide preventative health screening and education on general health, have more open communication, collaborate with other health care professionals, and have broader consultations. This will allow for better continuity of care and shift the focus of treatment to the whole person instead of a symptom. Whilst there are barriers that need to be resolved and cost feasibility requires more exploration, the potential benefit to patients is apparent.

Analysis of Incident Reports of a Dental University Hospital

Incident reports are important for improving the quality and safety of medical care. Healthcare workers with less than one year of work experience have been reported to cause the most incidents, and the most common incident is “drug-related”. However, few studies have comprehensively analyzed incidents in dentistry, and the characteristics of dental incidents have not been understood. In this study, to understand the characteristics of dental incidents, we comprehensively analyzed 1291 incident reports submitted to the Tokyo Medical and Dental University Dental Hospital from April 2014 to March 2019. As a result, dental outpatient and dental wards had different types of incidents. In outpatient wards, incidents included many dentistry-specific incidents related to “procedures”. Among them, “poor physical condition of the patient during dental treatment” was the most common incident. In contrast, the most common incident from subjects with less than one year of work experience was “damage to soft tissues around the teeth”. Thus, to improve the quality and safety in dentistry, it is was considered necessary to analyze and understand the characteristics of dentistry-specific incidents and to take appropriate measures and educate dental professionals.