Class 3 dental treatment time.
OBJECTIVE
Dental emergencies take soldiers away from their assigned duties. The objective of this project was to determine the average clinical treatment time needed to correct nondeployable dental conditions using actual treatment times noted in an electronic scheduler.


METHODS
The Fort Hood Class Three Intercept Clinic forwarded their daily treatment logs to the Dental Command for each week from November 1, 2002 through February 13, 2003. Clinical treatment times and types of services provided for dental fitness category (DFC) 3 conditions were tracked with the Corporate Dental Application scheduler.


RESULTS
The project identified 398 DFC 3 soldiers who were scheduled to receive treatment at the Fort Hood Class Three Intercept Clinic between November 1, 2002 and February 13, 2003. Twenty-three of those soldiers did not receive treatment; therefore, the total sample size was 375. On average, it required 2.2 hours of clinical dental treatment time to make a DFC 3 soldier dentally deployable.


CONCLUSIONS
The findings of this study suggest that treating DFC 3 conditions is time-intensive but most DFC 3 soldiers can be treated in approximately 2 hours in an efficient and properly staffed dental clinic. Without proper preventive education and maintenance, these soldiers may develop additional oral disease and may require repeated episodes of increasingly intensive dental treatment.
Chaffin
Jeffrey G
JG
Dental Corps, U.S. Army, U.S. Army Dental Command, 2050 Worth Road, Suite 4, Fort Sam Houston, TX 78234, USA.
Mazuji
Nasrin
N
D001071:Appointments and Schedules; D003740:Dental Clinics / Q000458:organization & administration / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D004630:Emergencies / Q000145:classification / Q000453:epidemiology*; D006801:Humans; D008885:Military Dentistry / Q000458:organization & administration* / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D008889:Military Personnel / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D013781:Texas / Q000453:epidemiology; D013996:Time and Motion Studies; D014938:Work Capacity Evaluation