WHAT IT CAN DO FOR YOU

O.R. can help any business with its Workforce Planning - as the Dental Profession found out

The oral health needs of the population are changing as a greater proportion of older people retain their teeth and levels of oral disease continue to rise. Changes to the regulatory system in dentistry have also been introduced which have resulted in extended roles for technicians, hygienists and nurses.

The dental profession, in the form of the Dental Practice Board (DPB) recognised the need to improve its workforce planning to ensure that particular anticipated needs were met by appropriately qualified staff numbers.

O.R. practitioners built a demand model using the DPB’s comprehensive database. The model included variables such as national demographic trends, attendance and treatment rates, tooth retention and complexity of treatments. The O.R. team were able to use the model to forecast demand for various types of treatment and compare these projections with anticipated workforce supply to produce a range of estimates for the workforce shortfall or surplus both currently and in the future.

The programme of research identified an optimum workforce supply and skills mix that would result in a 20% saving in staff costs.

Planning the future needs of staff for any organisation can be tricky, but O.R. can help to identify the best balance between workforce supply and skills mix to satisfy predicted demand.