Dental Charting Software

FDI notation, because that is what you were taught

jDent charts in FDI two-digit notation: teeth 11 to 18 upper right, 21 to 28 upper left, 31 to 38 lower left, 41 to 48 lower right. Tooth 16 is the upper right first molar. Tooth 36 is the lower left first molar.

This matters more than it sounds. Software written for the American market often defaults to the Universal numbering system, where teeth run 1 to 32. A chart that calls the lower left first molar "19" instead of "36" is a small friction on every single entry, and it makes your records harder for the next dentist who reads them.

What a tooth can carry

Each tooth holds its own findings, colour-coded so the state of the whole mouth is readable without clicking into anything:

• Caries and Filling, the two you will use most
• RCT for endodontically treated teeth
• Crown for existing and planned prosthetic work
• Extraction and Missing, which are not the same thing and should not be recorded as if they were
• Implant where a missing tooth has been restored

Where several teeth share a finding, they can be charted as a group rather than repeated one at a time. A patient presenting with caries on four teeth is one entry, not four.

The part that actually saves time

Charting on paper produces a chart. Charting in the practice software produces a chain.

A finding recorded on tooth 37 becomes a line in that patient's treatment plan, priced from your own procedure catalogue. When the procedure is completed it is marked finished, and finished procedures generate the invoice. The invoice line still knows it was tooth 37. When the associate's commission is calculated at the end of the month, it is calculated from that line.

So the same piece of information is entered once and used four times. That is the difference between software that stores your charting and software that uses it. It also means a dispute months later has an answer: the finding, the date, the plan the patient agreed to, the procedure performed and the amount charged are one connected record rather than four separate books that have to be reconciled by hand.

Charting at the chair

The chart runs in a normal web browser, so the machine you use is your choice: the reception computer, a laptop, or a tablet beside the chair. There is nothing to install, no licence tied to a particular machine, and nothing to reinstall when a computer is replaced. Because the interface is a single-page application rather than a page that reloads on every click, moving between the chart, the plan and the invoice is immediate enough to do while the patient is still in the chair, which is when the record is most accurate.

Radiographs and other files attach to the patient record alongside the examination, so the image sits next to the finding it supports rather than in a folder on someone's desktop.

What to check before you choose any charting software

Most demos show you a pretty chart. These are the questions that separate a chart you will still be using in three years from one your staff quietly abandon:

• Which notation does it use, and can it be changed? If it is fixed to Universal numbering, every entry is a small translation for a dentist trained on FDI.
• How many clicks to record one finding? Multiply by the number of teeth you chart in a day. A chart that takes six clicks per tooth will be abandoned within a fortnight, regardless of how good it looks.
• Does a finding become anything? Ask them to chart a tooth and then produce the invoice for it without retyping. If the demo hesitates here, the chart is decorative.
• Can you chart multiple teeth in one action? Generalised caries is common; entering it eight separate times is not acceptable.
• Does the historical state survive? You want to know what the mouth looked like at the first visit, not just what it looks like now.
• Does it work on the device at the chair? A chart that only runs on the reception desktop will be filled in from memory at the end of the day, which is when records get worse.

That last one is worth dwelling on. The accuracy of a dental record is mostly a function of how soon after the procedure it was written. Software that is awkward at the chair does not just cost time, it quietly degrades the quality of every record the practice holds.

Honest limits

jDent's chart records findings at tooth level, using the seven findings listed above. It is built for general restorative and prosthetic recording rather than specialist periodontal work. If your practice depends on six-point periodontal pocket charting or surface-by-surface restorative mapping, ask us to show you the chart before you commit, so you can judge whether it fits how you record.

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