In our profession, dental hygienists play a major role in each patient’s journey to better oral health. At Spear, we wanted to strengthen the impact of the hygiene department within every practice and define the role of the hygienist.
The Spear Hygiene Mastery Program does exactly that, offering a curriculum that helps hygienists practice at the top of their license and prepares them to be clinical decision partners, or co-therapists, with their practice doctor, rather than working as a “production center.”
Rethinking the Role of Hygiene
In planning the program, we realized that successful practices follow 3 key principles:
1. They maintain current, consistent periodontal protocols.
2. They design workflows that encourage dental and hygiene teams to work as co-therapists in promoting patient health.
3. They help hygienists understand adjunctive periodontal therapies as well as expanded functions, such as sealants and whitening.
With those principles in mind, the Spear Hygiene Mastery Program was born. The membership-based, online platform includes 15 courses, each between 30 and 60 minutes, as well as 6 corresponding webinars.
Hygienists will gain opportunities to boost their clinical confidence by reviewing periodontal protocols such as staging and grading. They’ll be offered clear frameworks about what to do from a diagnosis and treatment standpoint, and how to improve case acceptance through stronger patient conversations.
Career growth pathways also are part of the discussion. As hygienists become more skilled, they can contribute to the practice in a more impactful way. We believe the practice will see improved periodontal diagnosis and documentation, as well as increased alignment across the entire dental team. Members will soon be able to monitor their improvement over time through Spear's website, accessing tools that measure outcomes and KPIs against Spear benchmarks.
We’ve found that when practices function as a true team, they tend to be more successful because patients can see and feel that collaborative approach. It helps patients feel safe and well cared for, which ultimately makes them more likely to pursue treatment.
The Spear Hygiene Mastery Program integrates clinical excellence with the communication skills hygienists need to influence patient cases and work collaboratively with the entire team. Because in the end, when the entire team is on the same page, the winner is always the patient.
