Mint Dentists

Mint dental is a dental group that supports practices in working more efficiently. These are often large practices with multiple dentists, assistants and cabinets. Practice managers were struggling with scheduling oversight, especially for matching assistants with dentists and making the best use of cabinets. Because existing scheduling tools were inadequate, Nebulae was brought in to develop custom software.

About the client & problem statement

Mint dental is a grouping of dentists, they support various dental practices around the country to work more efficiently. In many cases, these are large practices that employ a lot of different dentists and assistants, and have several cabinets available. Each of these dentists and assistants obviously have their own schedules and work schedules.

Therefore, it was often difficult for the practice manager to get an overall view of the schedule. Important principles were to make sure that there were always enough assistants for the working dentists and that the cabinets were filled as best as possible.

The client had already used and tested several existing scheduling tools and software but did not really find a match anywhere. Nebulae was therefore brought in to develop a custom software. And, of course, we gladly accepted the challenge.

Solution

At the beginning of the process, we always analyze with the client what the best software solution would entail. In this case, we were fortunate that a practice owner, David Norre, was very closely involved in the project, that David also had programming experience, and that he had a clear vision of what the scheduling software should be able to do. This made for a pleasant and smooth collaboration.

We chose a web app that would be easily accessible via a browser on different devices. The software was divided into 3 different user environments: one for the practice administrators, one for the dentists and one for the assistants. In addition, a distinction was also made between a mobile & a desktop view. Where the mobile version of the web application has a somewhat limited functionality.

In this project overview we mainly focus on the practice administrator environment, as this is where most of the complexity can be found.

1. Adding individual schedules

In the system, the practice administrator of both dentists and employees can manage the weekly schedule and thus set the working hours. In most cases these are recurring calendar events, weekly or biweekly. In the backend, we manage this through custom postgres database functions, which always calculate the specific dates for the shifts. That way we can generate a nice weekly and yearly overview (see below).

Assistance requirement per dentist shift

Not every dentist needs the same assistance. This feature allows you to define how much assistance is needed per dentist and per type of treatment, and whether a certain preference is needed in terms of assistant.

2. Overview Dentists

The platform provides a clear overview of all working dentists within the practice. Per dentist is shown when they are scheduled, in which cabinet they work. This makes it possible to quickly see who is available when and how the workload is distributed.

3. Task Management

In any practice, there are also some recurring tasks that must be performed on a weekly or daily basis. Think of manning the front desk or taking care of stock replenishment and waste disposal. Using our handy tool, practice managers can create tasks, set their intervals, possibly assign a permanent person and group the tasks.

4. Assistants overview

Similar to the dentist overview, this feature shows all available assistants and their work schedules and specializations. It also shows which dentists, if any, are assigned to their shifts, and what tasks are on their schedules.

5. Cabinet management.

Through this module, all treatment rooms can be efficiently managed. The system keeps track of which cabinets are available and ensures that there are no double bookings. It is another view within the web app on the same weekly schedule and shows whether the infrastructure is optimally utilized.

6. Weekly overview

This feature provides a compact weekly overview that combines all schedules and was actually the most important screen from the application. At a glance you can see how dentists, assistants and cabinets are assigned that week. The system automatically identifies understaffing or potential bottlenecks such as dentists who have not been assigned an assistant, tasks that have not been assigned or performed.

7. Annual review

The annual overview is then another visualization on the situation of the practice. The tool actually calculates in FTE (full-time equivalents) how much over- or understaffing there is per day. This way, practice managers get a good helicopter view, this helps in making strategic staffing plans and ensuring continuity in the practice.

8. Requesting vacations

As told earlier, we did not opt for native mobile app, but rather a responsive web app. This mobile version of the web app has some limited functionality. One of these was the ability to easily submit leave requests or sick reports. The system automatically checks whether sufficient staffing remains and whether there are any conflicts with existing appointments. Practice managers can then immediately approve or reject these requests.

Conclusions

Developing this scheduling software presented a complex technical challenge that was successfully addressed. The core of the system lies in the algorithm that must process different types of recurring events - from weekly to bi-weekly schedules - and translate them into specific calendar moments. A particular challenge was implementing the logic that checks whether there is enough assistance available for each dentist, taking into account their individual requirements. The system also had to smartly handle exceptions such as vacations and illness, which impact recurring patterns. Through thoughtful software architecture and intensive collaboration with the customer, a robust solution was created that significantly simplifies and optimizes the scheduling of large dental practices.

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