Relationship Between Broken Appointments and Dental Students’ Clinical Experience Level

Abstract

As more dental schools adopt a comprehensive care model focused on patients' needs rather than a certain number of required procedures, clinic time utilization by students is coming under increasingly close scrutiny. This article presents an analysis of the inluence of broken appointment rates on dental students' clinical experience levels. The total percentage of broken appointments experienced by each student from the classes of 2010 and 2011 at Case Western Reserve University School of Dental Medicine during his or her clinical education in the junior and senior years was determined, and the impact of the broken appointment rate on students' clinical experience levels was analyzed. The results show a statistically signiicant difference regarding the percentage of broken appointments between the classes of 2010 and 2011: 18.64 percent and 14.44 percent, respectively. When the rate of no-shows was compared to the students' clinical experience level, a weak but signiicant negative correlation was determined for the class of 2010 but not for the class of 2011. It is concluded that the rate of broken appointments accounts for a small part of the variability observed in the number of clinical procedures performed in the predoctoral clinic. When this rate is lowered below a threshold of 14.5 percent, broken appointments seem to have no inluence on students' clinical experience level. Dr. Teich is Associate Professor and Assistant Dean

Design and Outcomes of a Comprehensive Care Experience Level System to Evaluate and Monitor Dental Students’ Clinical Progress

“…The most important tool for early identification of these students is monitoring on a monthly basis the lower 15% student tier, thus providing the opportunity to address their needs even before the first CCEL benchmark set at the end of the third year. This can be done by selectively allocating more patients, helping with the management of the students’ patient family to lower broken appointments, 27 and ensuring effective scheduling. Most students who did not meet the end of the third‐year criteria were able to remediate and achieve the required level of points during the summer semester at the beginning of the fourth year.…”

“…Since 2011, Case Western Reserve University School of Dental Medicine (CWRU) has implemented a Comprehensive Care Experience Level (CCEL) system that promotes comprehensive care and addresses the flaws observed in previous RVU‐based programs 27 . The purpose of this article is to report on the design process and application methodology of this novel clinical education evaluation system.…”

Toward a better understanding of dental appointment‐keeping behavior

“…Published research on dental appointment‐keeping interventions mainly describes the use of automated or semi‐automated reminders , sometimes in combination with a comprehensive policy which terminates patients from services after a certain number of broken appointments . Other interventions have included required educational sessions, some in the form of information about how broken appointments affect clinic operations, and some in combination with information about oral hygiene or access to other health services .…”

Is Dental Students’ Clinical Productivity Associated with Their Personality Profile?

“…Also, broken appointments due to cancellation or failure to appear result in loss of students’ clinical productivity by reducing clinical teaching opportunities and can create major problems for dental schools due to loss of clinical revenues. Teich et al found that broken appointment rates of 19% were significantly related to lost productivity in the clinical education setting 2 …”