Achieving Whole Mouth Health

Patient outcomes are tied to team performance. Knowing your patients helps overcoming the challenge of encouraging them to be compliant with oral hygiene instructions. There is good evidence that the adoption of specific psychological interventions based on theories of health-related behavior provides superior outcomes as compared to simple educational interventions. Dental clinicians often share health information with patients which is not enough to make them change their behavior. Through good communication, barriers to behavioral change as a low level of health literacy can be identified, and patients can be empowered to take responsibility of their self-care.

Learning Objectives:

• Understand the characteristics of the contemporary dental patients
• Utilize strategies to educate patients about how to attain whole mouth health
• Summarize ways to empower patients to comply with preventive recommendations
• Examine how digital oral health risk and severity reports provide value to your practice and your patient
• Explain how patient homecare recommendations can be tailored to individual patient needs based on their risk scores