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How good are our impressions? an audit of alginate impression quality in the production of removable prostheses Richard Horwitz Dental Update 2024 41:4, 707-709.
Impressions are taken regularly in practice giving vital information to the dental laboratory, but are there quality assurance systems in place to make sure that they are up to a sufficient standard? As dental professionals we have to appreciate that dental technicians can only work with the information given to them. This makes the skill of taking a good impression vital in order for us as clinicians to provide prostheses of good quality. This paper outlines an audit of alginate impressions and their quality in the making of removable prostheses.
Clinical Relevance: To record the quality of impression taking, and how one's own ability to critique an impression may differ from that of our colleagues.
Article
A prospective audit was carried out with two cycles over a six-month period on alginate impressions for the provision of removable prostheses. A sample size of 10 impressions per cycle were recorded and assessed according to the criteria and standards set below. A data sheet was compiled listing the purpose of the impression, the type of tray used and the quality score from the clinician, a peer review score from another dentist in the practice and the dental technician.
A protocol was established to provide a reproducible method for completing an alginate impression:1,2
Criteria and standards were established to create a scoring system for the impressions (Table 1).
This was based on criteria set in three separate studies assessing impressions quality3,4,5,6 and formulated with input from a local dental laboratory. This enabled the scoring system to remain impartial. A target was set for the standard of alginate impressions taken in the first audit cycle. This was to take impressions of a score above ‘3’ and to score a ’4’ or a ‘5’ at least 50% of the time.
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