How to Use Patient Charting in Core Practice

Overview

The Charting feature in Core Practice allows you to record and monitor a patient's oral health, including existing conditions, required treatments and treatment progress.

You can also create multiple treatment plans for the same patient. Theis can be useful when presenting alternative treatment options, such as extraction or root canal treatment for the same tooth.

When you add a treatment to a chart, it is automatically added to the patient's treatment plan, The plan provides an overview of the proposed treatment costs, including the total amount and the cost per visit, where applicable. This can help patients review their treatment options, check their health fund benefits and compare alternative treatment plans.

This article covers:

• Charting overview
• Create a new plan
• Selecting a chart type
• Adding pre-existing conditions
• Adding treatments
• Advanced charting functions
• Keyboard shortcuts

Charting overview

Core Practice displays two charting views at the same time:

• Full chart - provides an overview of the patient's oral health.
• Selected tooth view - allows you to focus on an individual tooth and apply conditions or treatments as required.
  
  

To access a patient's chart:

1. Open the patient's profile.
2. Click Charting.
   
   

The selected tooth is identified by a blue rectangular outline.

Some common conditions you may see on the chart include:

• Missing - the tooth is not present.
• Cracked - the tooth has a crack.
• Caries - the selected tooth surfaces have caries.
• Selected tooth - the tooth currently selected on the chart, identified by a blue rectangular outline.
• Deciduous - the tooth has been identified as deciduous. The tooth number will change, and the tooth will appear smaller than the surrounding adult teeth.
• Watch - the tooth or surface has been marked for monitoring.
• Chip - The selected surfaces are chipped.

Create a new treatment plan

To create a new treatment plan:

1. Form the Charting page, click Create Plan.
   
   

   If the patient already has an existing plan, it will also be displayed on this page.

2. If an existing chart is available, a window will appear allowing you to copy information from another plan.
   
   
    

   You can choose to copy the existing items, such as pre-existing conditions or treatments. This can be useful when creating an alternative treatment options for the same tooth.
    

3. If this is the patient's first chart, enter or review the treatment plan details. 
   The Location, Provider, and Expiry fields are generally populated automatically but you can update them if required.

   Complete the following fields as needed:

   Name - the name of the treatment plan. Core Practice assigns a default name, such as Plan 1 or Plan 2. You can deselect the checkbox and enter a custom name if required.

   Note - add any additional information or description relating to the treatment plan.
   
   
    

4. Confirm the Location and Provider.
5. Click Submit and Create Plan.

Select a chart type

Core Practice uses an adult chart by default.

To change the chart type:

1. Click More.

2. Select either:

   Adult Chart

   Deciduous Chart

Choose the chart that is appropriate for the patient.

Add pre-existing conditions

Before adding proposed treatments, you can record the patient's existing oral health conditions.

1. Select the tooth you want to update.
2. Open the Condition tab.

3. Select the appropriate condition.

   The available options include oral health conditions and pre-existing treatments.
    

4. Select the relevant tooth surface or surfaces where applicable.

   You can select multiple surfaces at the same time. To deselect a surface, click it again.
    

5. Repeat these steps for any additional teeth or conditions.

You can also:

• Mark a tooth as Deciduous or Adult.
• Select Missing if the tooth is present.
• Select Restore to return a tooth previously marked as missing to the chart.
• use the left and right directional arrows to move between teeth.

For example, you can record caries on the MOB surfaces of the tooth 16.

Add treatments

Once the patient's conditions have been recorded, you can add the required treatments.

1. Select the appropriate tooth.
2. Click Treatment.
3. Select the required treatment.
4. Continue moving through the chart and adding treatments as they are identified.
   For example, you can add a three-canal root therapy to tooth 16.
   If the selected treatment contains multiple items or visits, a window will display the  individual item numbers included in the treatment.
5. Review the listed items.
6. Click any item you do not want to include to deselect it.
7. Click Submit.

The selected items will be added to the treatment plan.

To review the treatments that have been added, click Plan.

Advanced charting functions

The Charting page includes several additional functions to help you manage the patient's chart.

Refresh chart

Refreshes the chart without refreshing the entire browser page.

Print all

Print the patient's chart and treatments together.

You can also print the treatment plan separately without including the chart.

Clear all your sections

Clears any current selected teeth.

This only removed the selection from the teeth. It does not remove any conditions or treatments that have already been applied.

Delete selected chart items

Deletes the chart items associated with the selected teeth, including conditions and treatments.

When the confirmation window appears, click Delete to confirm.

More

Opens additional charting options.

From this menu, you can:

• Change between adult and deciduous charts.
• Filter the chart to show or hide specific information.
• Restore missing teeth.

When a filter is selected, the chart will display only the information included in that filter.

Keyboard shortcuts

You can use keyboard shortcuts to move the tooth selector around the dental chart more quickly.

The selector is the blue rectangular outline around the current selected tooth.

If you have any questions, please click the yellow Help button at the bottom left and chat with us. We are more than happy to help!