259 - Dental Rehabilitation with General Anesthesia and Analysis of Waiting Time Periods

The aim of this research project is to
understand how long patients are waiting to be seen to
have dental rehabilitation completed under general
anesthesia at Children’s Mercy Hospital. The data will
help determine if additional surgical blocks are needed
for dental providers to serve the patient population in a
more reasonable time frame.

Methods: A retrospective
review of all appointments in the CMH dental clinic was
conducted for all patients referred for general anesthesia.
Data collected included patient wait times, patient age,
ASA (American Society of Anesthesiologists)
classification, type of appointment in which GA referral
was made, and if the patient had previously undergone
dental rehab under general anesthesia.

Results: Data
analyzed included only patients seen at CMH for dental
rehabilitation. Most referrals were patients of ASA III+
classification between 4 and 7 years old. Most were also
being seen for dental rehabilitation under GA for the first
time and waited between 6 and 12 months for
treatment.

Conclusion: Results show need for
expansion of internal dental surgical capacity at CMH.
Increasing the number of internal surgical blocks
or establishing a dental surgery center could greatly
decrease surgery wait time and increase the number of patients seen for dental rehabilitation.