The Dental Treatment Case Complexity Assessment Form and Recommendations for Persons with Special Health Care Needs is a new resource to help dentists and the dental team in making referral decisions when treating patients with special health care needs (SHCN).
Co-developed by the Canadian Dental Association and clinician members of the Canadian Society for Disability and Oral Health, the tool is intended to help clinicians establish the case complexity of patients with SHCN, and to determine a practitioner’s comfort level in providing treatment or making modifications to treatment based on existing knowledge, experience and/or physical clinical space.
The tool enables a dental practitioner to assign a level of complexity to an individual, which helps both the practitioner and the caregiver to better understand the factors that can contribute to the patient’s dental treatment needs.
In the first of two videos below, three dentists speak about how and why this tool came about, and why it is important for day-to-day clinical practice. In the second video, Dr. Timucin Ari, certified pediatric dentist from London, ON, provides a step-by-step tutorial of how the tool works.
The tool is available in both English and French and can be downloaded now at cda-adc.ca/assessment
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Until next time!
CDA Oasis Team
