National dental waitlists: what would it take to reset to zero?

Conclusion The design of the Australian public dental care system that is targeted at meeting the needs of eligible patients into the future, in addition to being effective and sustainable, must also offer a level of protection to the taxpayer. The ability to address waitlist backlog identified in the present study clearly would require a mix of service models depending on service availability at different locations. Further research is needed to optimise the mix of service providers to address community needs.What is known about the topic? Long public dental waitlists across Australia have received much attention from the media. The topic has been the subject of debate at the government level and, over the years, has seen an increase in allocation of public funds in an effort to address the policy needs.What does this paper add? This study calculates the actual number of people on the public dental waitlist, provides a detailed analysis of the distribution of the demand for the services and offers a cost model for resetting public dental waitlists across Australia.What are the implications for practitioners? This study carries no implications for individual practitioners at the clinical level. However, at the state and national levels, this model offers direction to a more cost-effective allocation of public funds and human resources. PMID: 26364244 [PubMed - as supplied by publisher]
Source: Australian Health Review - Category: Hospital Management Authors: Tags: Aust Health Rev Source Type: research