23AAP-IP4: Perio Open Mic: Outcomes-based Decision Making in Periodontal Therapy

Speakers: Charles M. Cobb and Lee N. Sheldon

This program includes novel and integrated patient and practice management aimed at better serving needful patients, general dentists, dental hygienists, and periodontists.

Most dental disciplines and virtually all medical disciplines develop and promote specific decision criteria to ensure patients receive appropriate and timely treatment for their conditions. Periodontics is one of the few specialties that does not cogently describe appropriate and timely decision-making regarding key variables, such as clinical signs that suggest therapy is succeeding, when a maintenance program may be indicated and when advanced therapy may be appropriate. Standardized decision criteria are both appropriate and needed for all dental practitioners so that they can make science-based decisions and avoid placing patients in therapeutic regimens that are inadequate to treat or control their periodontal conditions. Decisions should be patient-oriented and based on the reduction/elimination of inflammation and the reduction/elimination of disease progression. Outcomes-based Decision Making combines scientific knowledge and practice management to ensure that the patients who entrust their care to dental professionals are adequately treated. Our criteria address outcomes only, not the methodologies of periodontal treatment. Therefore, they are easily adapted to any general practice and facilitate better communication between general dentists, dental hygienists and periodontists. Furthermore, they are tightly integrated with the classification system promulgated by the 2017 World Workshop.

Educational Objectives:
• Create parameters of success for the general dentists/hygienists.
• Incorporate a restorative plan as a part of the periodontal treatment plans to support referring dentists.
• Utilize technology to differentiate one's periodontal practice.