Читать книгу The SAC Classification in Implant Dentistry - Группа авторов - Страница 14

On its surface, the SAC classification provides an assessment of the potential difficulty and risk of an implant-related treatment for a given clinical situation and serves as a guide for clinicians in both patient selection and treatment planning. In addition, it can also fulfill several additional roles.

Primarily, the classification scheme is aimed at providing clinicians with an objective and evidence-based framework against which they can assess clinical cases regarding the complexity of the planned treatment. This can then be used to assist them in deciding if they possess the necessary skills and knowledge to complete the treatment themselves, or whether referral to a more experienced clinician is indicated. With this capacity, they can build their experience in implant dentistry incrementally and minimize potential risk to their patients. Recently, the current SAC Assessment Tool validity was tested in regard to the agreement level between users, confirming its role as a clinical decision-making tool, as well as a valuable tool for the education of less experienced clinicians (Correia et al, 2020).

The SAC classification can also act as a checklist for more experienced clinicians to help them ensure that all relevant risks have been considered in the patient assessment and treatment planning phases of care.

Communication is a vital part of any step of patient management. In this regard, the SAC classification can aid in communication between clinicians as well as between them and their patients. The classification facilitates communication between colleagues by providing a known framework to exchange information: a shorthand that all involved clinicians are familiar with. When dealing with patients, clinicians can use the SAC classification of their situation to illustrate to patients the complexity and risks associated with their care. As such, it becomes an important tool not only in treatment planning but in the informed consent process as well.

Finally, the SAC classification can aid educators in developing training programs that gradually introduce increasingly more complex cases to their students, allowing an incremental development of knowledge and skill.