The recent Dental Insights report by CommBank Health in partnership with the ADA1, has highlighted many interesting trends in post-pandemic dental practice.

The 2022 Dental Insights Report draws upon the results of a quantitative survey of 473 dental team members that was conducted in July/August, 2022. The survey included practice owners, practising dentists and practice managers from dental clinics across metropolitan and regional Australia. It examined the operational and financial performance, strategic priorities, initiatives, and outlook of these practices.

One of the main take home messages was the optimism and the commitment to serving the community that our profession has shown not only during the COVID-19 pandemic but also during this recovery phase. The Dental Insights report suggests that amongst the common traits of growth-focussed practices, actively nurturing a supportive culture for the dental team is a strategy many practices plan to use to attract and retain staff.

Maintaining employee engagement through team building and adopting a supporting learning environment were identified as ways to build and maintain a healthy dental practice.

Becoming involved in volunteering could be an important way to contribute to these strategies.

Volunteering has been shown to provide benefits way beyond those for the recipient. Research supports the fact that people involved in regular volunteering enjoy benefits of improved mental and physical health and happiness.

Providing pro bono dental treatment for disadvantaged patients who are unable to access mainstream dental care in either the private or public sector could be an excellent team-building opportunity for you and your team.

The recent Australian Council for Social Services (ACOSS), Australian Community Sector Survey2 has confirmed that an increasing number of people in our community are struggling. Disadvantaged community members are battling to provide the basics for their families, things that I know I don’t even have to think twice about for my own family – having a roof over our head, being able to afford nutritious foods and to access medical care when needed.

The report cites cost-of-living pressures and increased complexity of issues faced by disadvantaged members of the community as the biggest problems that support agencies are facing. So never has there been a greater need for us to step up and give back to those in desperate need.

An interesting statistic from the Dental Insights survey was that 43% of surveyed dental practices reported an increased amount of unutilised time. So, in an ever-optimistic bid to turn lemons into lemonade, the team at Filling the Gap would like to suggest turning some of this unutilised time into a fantastic team building and employee engagement opportunity. If you have some capacity in your appointment book, consider contacting us and we can arrange to send you a charity patient in desperate need of pro bono care.

Our programs are completely on your terms, you can tell us how many patients you can assist and what times you have available. We take away the stress you experience in other aspects of practice and make the experience a win-win for you, your team and the patients. Alternately, if you have dental assistants that are under utilised on particular days, we are always extremely grateful to have them volunteer in our clinics held at the ADA NSW clinical training centre in St Leonards. If you would like more information on how to get started, don’t hesitate to contact us. Together, as a profession we can make a difference by Giving the Gift of a Smile.