Dental Personnel Power Planning Dr Hidayathulla Shaikh

Objectives At the end of the lecture student should be able to – Enumerate important part in proper planning of dental work force Discuss consideration for proper planning of dental personnel power Explain information required for estimation of dental personnel power

Introduction Planning is an integral part of health care provision, at the most basic level. Planning aims to guide choices so that the decisions are made in the best manner to achieve desired outcome. Planning provides proper structure of entire process, and helps in obtaining maximum results in limited resources.

The most important part in proper planning of dental work force is with the understanding of - a) The infrastructure b) Needs of the community and c) Disease load of the population and d) Consideration of future problems However the following consideration require for proper dental personnel planning they are -

1)Dental Education –  This recent era has seen many dental colleges across the country.  Fortunately the type of training and curriculum of the existing dental course is relevant to the needs of the society.  The training of young dental graduates provide good platform to serve the society.  Hence the training and utilization of dental graduates is required to meet the demand of oral health care.

2) Geographical distribution –  The geographical balance in the distribution of dental colleges in any country is very important.  The mal distribution creates imbalance in providing oral health care to the people.

At the same time the distribution of dentist practicing is also very important. Most of the graduates tend to practice in the urban areas where as rural areas see very minimal practitioners. Thus dentist population ratio varies in urban and rural areas and is very important in providing services to the people.

3) Courses offered  How many dental colleges are offering post graduate courses in all the specialty in dentistry is also an important factor.  For ex if the colleges are not providing postgraduate training in any particular specialty than the specialist of that specialty will be scarce.  Hence the people will get affected in getting oral health services in that particular specialty.  Also if the colleges do not provide training of dental auxiliaries then their will be deficiency in providing oral health care to whole population.

The following information is required for estimation of personnel power (WHO) 1) Population – Total Demographic profile Rate of growth Distribution – urban, rural School age population 2) Economics – Socioeconomic status Source of fund for health care

3) Political factors – Government attitude towards and responsibilities of heath services. Status of dentistry – Private government 4) Communication Transport Distance between centres

5) Demographic data – Ethnic group Educational levels Cultural aspects Religions‘ Customs 6) Dental disease patterns – Estimation of various types of dental diseases and conditions Collection of data with regard to dental diseases Level of oral hygiene Dietary pattern.

7) Present personnel power Availability Distribution Training facility and capacity 8) Desirable profiles 9) Attitude of dental personnel towards practice.

Benefits of using auxiliaries Along with the treating of oral diseases, provision should be made for prevention and educational activities as well. As the population is rapidly increasing their demands for oral care has also increased. The dentist alone are some times not able to manage all the treatment, preventive and educational process. Hence training auxiliaries for preventive and educational procedures helps to reduce the burden of disease in society.