ENGAGING AND ENABLING PATIENTS: A STUDY ON DENTAL IMPLANTS
Patient engagement plays an important role in while identifying and choosing treatment options based on the technology, efficacy, integrating patient values and preferences. The research context for the current study involves study of dental implants for replacement of missing tooth. Implant technology options are available in the market necessitate evaluation and selection of suitable implants by dentists based on the patient’s specific requirements/expectations. As per research literature, patient orientation to adopt dental implants hinges on dentist-patient engagement and the concept of shared decision-making has been attracting great attention in academic research. Current study proposes to examine the phases of patient engagement that enables the adoption of right choice of dental implants from both perspectives of dentists and patients.
Method(s):
Interactive Qualitative Analysis (IQA) is employed to map the phases of patient engagement model. It captures the dentist’s knowledge through inductive, deductive and axial coding. The phases were further explored to identify the importance Vs. performance from the perspective of both dentists and patients. Importance Performance Analysis (IPA) is deployed to identify the potential focus areas by employing survey instrument.
Result(s):
Patient engagement model has been developed with 11 key phases through group and individual interview coding. These phases further segregated into drivers and outcomes based on the level of influence. Dentist’s characteristics and patient orientation and information exchange are considered as drivers for the patient engagement. Constructive engagement, trust and deliberation are identified as secondary outcomes. Shared responsibility, implant choice and perceived (patient) value is considered as key outcomes of the patient engagement model.
These phases were further studied to understand its performance based on the perceived importance from the perspective of dentists and patients. Quality of information exchange, dentist’s self-efficacy, trust and hospital environment need focus.
Conclusion(s):
Patient engagement model identified the key phases while facilitating the patients and dentists. Patient’s unmet expectations are resulted through the IPA study. Dentists should provide treatment explanation in laymen terms that enables the patients to appreciate the need for the treat choice.
Improve patient acceptance rate and reduce the communication time and improves the scale of operation.