Winter Workshop 2024 Week Five – Streamline Your Workflows with Plan Templates

We have reached Week Five of our Winter Workshop series, and this week we are exploring the updated treatment plan templates. 

Treatment plan templates are a powerful tool that can save you time in surgery whilst also providing consistency with the treatment items used across your dental practice. Let’s delve into the benefits of creating and plan templates, and how to create and use them effectively.  

Benefits of Treatment Plan Templates 

• Consistency: Using these templates ensures that the same high standards are applied across all treatment plans.  
• Time-Saving: By taking the time to set up predefined templates for common treatment plans, you can significantly reduce the time spent in surgery when it comes to charting and planning a course for a patient. 
• Efficiency: Standardised templates streamline not only your treatment planning process but also your reporting experience, with consistent codes being used across the board.  
• Personal Templates: With the ability to set access against each plan template, you can ensure your own templates are kept private whilst the practice standard templates are available across all users.  

Creating Treatment Plan Templates 

• Go to the ‘Chart’ tab in the patient’s record (we’d recommend using a test patient when creating treatment plan templates).  
• Open a new treatment plan and chart all the items you wish to include in this treatment plan template. You can even include tooth-specific items.  
• When you are finished, click on the ‘Plan templates’ tab. 
• Click ‘+ New’ at the top of this tab. 
• Fill in the ‘Nickname’ for your plan and set the ‘Category’. 
• Lastly you can set the access as either ‘Personal’ (a plan template that only you can see), or ‘Shared’ (a template visible across the practice for anyone to use). 
  

Using Treatment Plan Templates 

Navigate to your patient’s chart screen and select the ‘Plan Templates’ tab in the top left. You can filter your plans by category to make them easier to find, and even favourite specific plan templates so they appear at the top of your list! Then either: 

• Double click on the desired plan template from the list of available templates to open it as an entirely new treatment plan. 
• Click on the ‘+’ icon to the right of the plan template to add this straight into your already open treatment plan. 

By integrating treatment plan templates into your workflow, you can spend less time repeatedly drafting plans from the ground up, and instead dedicate more in-surgery time to your patients.  

What’s Next? 

To learn more about using treatment plan templates in Dentally and ensure you're maximising the benefits of this feature, visit our Help Centre. 

Thank you for joining us for Week Five of our Winter Workshop series! If you missed the previous weeks, be sure to catch up on our blog. See you next week for the final instalment of 2024’s Dentally Winter Workshop blog series.