Day 19 - Happy Birthday, Dr. Dee

I got some good news this morning - the house I am staying in sold. Not only is this great news for the Ray family, but for me as well because I no longer have to vacuum daily, put away dishes immediately after using them, or make my bed every morning. In celebration, I slept in and didn't go into work until about 10. Since I now have access to a car, I stopped by a Heritage Coffee Company stand today. Heritage Coffee is to Juneau what Starbucks is to the rest of the United States. Just recently a Starbucks opened in the Fred Meyer and those who are seen with the familiar green and white cups are quickly scolded by the die-hard Heritage Coffee fans. I'm not sure if the coffee was any better or worse, but it was cheaper!

I spent most of the morning doing telephone surveys. I have gotten lots of great responses that should help the SEARHC dentists better understand how their patients are thinking when they are in the waiting room or in the dentist's chair. Public health dentistry is so different from private practice, especially when it comes to broken or missed appointments. A dentist in private practice would have no trouble telling a patient that missed a couple of appointments that it might be best if that patient found another provider, but in public health dentistry the providers have an obligation to their patients that they cannot break.

Organizations like SEARHC also have very large patients bases (something I wrote about previously) and want to maximize the number of productive patients that they have each day. If 25% of your patients are missing appointments - that is a very inefficient use of resources. This coincides with a nearly month long waiting list and creates a lot of patient unrest. SEARHC has tried to quell this problem in the past with Emergency Walk-In patients and a Quick Call list, but the system still isn't perfect or even close to it. I'm hoping these surveys will provide some insight into why patients are struggling to keep appointments and what the dentists can do to make sure that the missed appointment rate stays low. It will also be interesting to compare and contrast responses from larger cities like Sitka and Juneau to smaller, village clinics like Haines or Prince of Wales.

Since today was Dr. Dee's birthday everyone went to Twin Lakes Cafeteria for the once a month hamburger. This is a burger that you literally could not eat more than once a month for risk of immediate heart attack or permanent indigestion. The burger was about half a pound with tons of cheese, bacon, mustard, mayonaise, etc. Throw in a hot pile of fries and you have what the dentists like to call a "gut-bomb". I now know that is an incredibly accurate description.

I went to the storage unit in the afternoon to pick up toothbrushes, toothpaste, and floss to distribute to OB patients who take our survey. A little incentive never hurt and, while we may take something as simple as a toothbrush or some dental floss for granted, there are many here who overlook such items. I also continued to do telephone surveys through the afternoon. I am up to 25 completed surveys which is about 8/day. If I can continue that pace hopefully I can reach my goal of at least 200 surveys by the time I leave Juneau.

We are going out to dinner for Dr. Dee's birthday tonight at some Chinese restaurant downtown. I always like getting together with all of the dentists outside of the clinic setting because it is a really fun group to be around. Sky knows that about 5 PM is walk/dinner time so she is starting to move around and wag her tail. I'm off to walk the dog and then to dinner...