The American Dream?
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- Published: Monday, 24 January 2022 08:03
- Written by Guy Tuggle
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A shortage of dentists, a shortage of nurses and a shortage of hygienists is limiting dentistry’s return to pre-pandemic norms. The problem, it seems, is not limited to the UK’s woefully resourced profession. The American Dental Association is reporting similar frustrations, and there are no quick answers.
According to statistics issued by the United States’ Department of Labor, employment in dentistry by April 2020 dropped to 44% of pre-pandemic figures of January 2020 as practices closed their doors. Congress put in place a Paycheck Protection Programme which, according to a report published in Dental Economics Magazine, 92% of practices took up. Had there been no such support it’s feared many practices - and jobs - would have been lost forever.
Fortunately for American dental workers, the market bounced back as restrictions were eased and, by June 2020, employment was back at 90% of pre-pandemic figures, rising to 100% by year end.
The picture, however, is not as rosy as the ADA’s figures might suggest for there is an ongoing shortage of dental professionals in the USA just as in the UK, with four out of ten practices struggling to hire dental assistants and a third searching for hygienists. This is because whilst numerically the employment levels have returned, the headcount is insufficient for the patient demand for dentistry.
With a widening gap between workforce and patient demand, practices report challenges accommodating patients with the same or desired frequency as many were used to. Unlike in the UK, where many patients have expressed a hesitancy about visiting dental surgeries in the era of Covid-19, 94% of American dental patients have no such reservations.
In America as here, there are no quick fixes. A skills shortage takes years to address and the ADA admits a need for ’innovation’ and floats the idea of cross-training to broaden the skills of practice staff. "Is this the time to promote skill flexibility and implement solutions such as teledentistry?" it asks.
As NHS dental practices ramp up their activity to chase targets with a workforce that has lost nearly a thousand dentists, will America’s search for workable solutions provide any answers?
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