DT News - UK - Interview: Smartphones can be a useful resource for dentists

Dental Tribune UK

Wed. 12 September 2018

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According to the UK's Office of Communications, 78 per cent of British people own a smartphone. Needless to say, these devices have changed how many people, including dentists, approach their work. Dental Tribune International spoke with Dr Simon Wright, senior lecturer in Implantology at the University of Salford’s School of Health Sciences in Manchester and co-author of a recent study on the topic, about the impact smartphones are seen to have by dentists in clinical practice.

Prof. Wright, what benefits are smartphones perceived to provide in a clinical setting?
The literature suggests a number of reasons that having access to a smartphone is a benefit. Firstly, they have been used as a diagnostic aid, through utilising the camera and video capabilities. Secondly, besides these functional aspects, apps broaden their capability, supporting the application of teaching and learning in clinical practice.

They have been shown to be utilised to access drug and medical references. Using applications such as the BNF Publications app, they may be used to access doses and drug interactions, and for medical calculations. A cross-sectional multicentre study in Saudi Arabia concluded that 64.4 per cent of the respondents to the investigation used their smartphones as a primary form of medical communication.

In dentistry specifically, the camera on the smartphone has been shown to be a valuable aid for communicating with the technician and taking the shade of a tooth, as well as for communicating with colleagues to diagnose traumatic injuries. Smartphones have also been found to be a useful resource for education and evaluating clinical skills.

Finally, a recent cross-sectional multicentre study found that clinicians have better access to resources at point of care decision-making when using a smartphone in the clinic.

What downsides do smartphones bring with them? Were they perceived to have a detrimental effect on patient safety in your study?
It is apparent that there are numerous benefits to this new mobile technology, particularly in the clinical teaching setting. However, there are also negative effects that may compromise the safety of our patients.

Firstly, the use of smartphones in the clinical setting distracts healthcare professionals and disrupts patient care, leading to errors and threatening patient safety. A recent study in a teaching hospital reported that 83.7 per cent of clinic healthcare professionals have witnessed their colleagues using smartphones at work and that 37 per cent of clinicians have responded to personal texts in the clinic.

Our study demonstrated that 61.7 per cent of the respondents thought that smartphones are a distraction to clinical duties in the dental practice.

This is the only study in dentistry; however, smartphones causing a distraction in medicine is well documented; for example, in a 2016 study in the Nurse Education Today journal, 24.7 per cent of 312 nurses admitted to being distracted by their phones during clinical practice and 58 per cent of 92 doctors cited distraction as a major problem of having smartphones in the medical practice. A further study of paediatric doctors reported that 19 per cent of resident doctors believed that they had missed important information owing to the distraction of a smartphone.

Secondly, there are data protection concerns regarding taking clinical photographs using the camera. The Data Protection Act 1998 states that data needs to be secure. Interpretation of this guidance advises against using personal devices, including smartphones, to record and store patient data, and it advises against a work smartphone being connected to sharing services such as iCloud. Furthermore, if sending information to a colleague or a patient, a secure method needs to be utilised.

Are there currently any recommendations or regulations regarding the use of smartphones in the dental practice? Is this something that should be implemented on a practice by practice level or through a broader method?
There is currently no national policy on the use of smartphones. Each practice should have a policy or protocol in place, however. This should allow clinicians, and patients, to benefit from the technology of mobile smartphones while not compromising patient safety. It will, however, need to conform to the guidance from the individual indemnity providers and the General Dental Council’s Standards for Dental Professionals guidance, which explicitly states a duty to keep information confidential and that images must not be taken in absence of consent.

Our study suggested that the key features of a policy should include such measures as “Smartphones, if allowed in the clinic, need to be on silent and not in view” and “Smartphones are not to be used whilst the patient is present”.

Further consideration should be given to the use of work tablet computers rather than smartphones, as this may address the concerns of mobile devices, while allowing the technological benefits.

Thank you for the interview.

Editorial note: Prof. Wright’s article, titled “Dentists’ perceptions of smart phone use in the clinical environment”, was published online in the British Dental Journal on 24 August 2018 and can be found here.

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