Unlocking excellent patient care through professional training – Sarah Kenyon The Learning & Development Partner for Colosseum Dental UK
Featured Products Promotional FeaturesPosted by: Dental Design 8th December 2019
Continuous training and education is a requirement for all dental professionals. However, there is much more to it than simply ticking boxes. As would be expected, professional training directly impacts quality of patient care in the healthcare sector.[i] It is important for both clinical and non-clinical staff in the dental practice to be sufficiently trained in order to create a positive patient experience.
This is very much the ethos adopted by Colosseum Dental. Having essentially started from scratch to create a dental provider committed to excellent patient care, the group has taken its pledge to facilitate professional training very seriously.
Sarah Kenyon, Learning and Development Partner, commented:
“With 70 locations across the East and West of England, offering courses for everyone to attend proved tricky. We appreciate that professionals have many demands on their time and we didn’t want to add to the pressures they faced. As such, we decided to offer blended learning opportunities that would be more accessible for all members of our practice teams.
“We have developed an online CPD system with Healthcare Learning, which offers 400 hours of enhanced CPD. It is free for all our employed professionals and we have been able to negotiate a discount for our associate dentists to access the platform too. Available since July 2019, we are proud to have introduced such a useful tool for our staff. It is the perfect complement to the physical courses we offer, which we also hope to start include webinars to make learning even more convenient for our professionals.”
Supporting all team members
Ensuring all professionals receive the training and support they need, Colosseum Dental recently implemented programmes designed specifically for different members of the team.
“The practice manger programme is called Evolve,” explains Sarah. “It has so far offered a day of training each month for seven months, covering everything that our practice managers need to know to do their jobs to the best of their abilities. Topics included how to manage themselves, other people, the practice and the systems, as well as customer service and basic clinical areas. The idea was simply to give all relevant professionals the solid grounding they need to become great practice managers. We will be expanding further on this next year with the Evolve 2 programme, helping our practice managers raise their game once more and become who they aspire to be.
“Understanding the importance of the reception team in a patient’s journey through the practice, we are also providing all professionals in this role with training. Their programme focuses on customer service, as well as how to efficiently use the systems in place to manage the diary and ensure an excellent experience for both patient and practice.”
For dentists, the group has facilitated training in an array of areas to help clinicians advance their skills – clinical education and development is a clear component of their ongoing strategy. They have already conducted training for dentists across multiple disciplines with fantastic results in the best interests of patient care.
Making a difference
The goal of all this training is ultimately to improve the patient care delivered and create a great place for passionate professionals to work. While it is still early days for the group, Sarah believes the focus on education is already delivering results.
“Many of our practice managers have commented on and demonstrated an increased level of confidence in their jobs,” she says. “They have been empowered to do things differently and for the benefit of their patients. There is also an increased appetite among our professionals for development, with many individuals showing interest in further training and engaging with our programmes.
“Not only does this help us strive for excellent patient care, but it also encourages job satisfaction among professionals and gives them a great place to work. As an extension of this, we are delighted to have already received many nominations for our internal annual awards. These are designed to recognise individuals’ dedication to the group’s key values and it’s fantastic to see so many people praising their colleagues.”
A bright future
With innovative new clinical techniques and technologies, as well as a greater emphasis on patient-centred dentistry, the future of our profession is bright. Through high quality training opportunities, all members of the dental team are able to deliver excellence every time.
For more information about Colosseum Dental, please visit www.colosseumdental.co.uk
[i] Garzonis K, Mann E, Wyrzykowska A, Kanellakis P. Improving Patient Outcomes: Effectively Training Healthcare Staff in Psychological Practice Skills: A Mixed Systematic Literature Review. Eur J Psychol. 2015;11(3):535–556. Published 2015 Aug 20. doi:10.5964/ejop.v11i3.923
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