[AT YOUR SERVICE]
Pearl Harbor teeth In the movie "Cast Away" survivor Tom Hanks, abandoned on a South Pacific island and nagged by a toothache, has to perform painful emergency oral surgery on himself using the blade of an ice skate to dig out the bad tooth.
are ship-shape
Innovations to the Navy's
practice have increased
profitabilityAT YOUR SERVICE
By Gregg K. Kakesako
gkakesako@starbulletin.comIt's not a pleasant scene, but it's a scenario the Navy, which sends its ships to sea for months at a time, must face. Not all warships and submarines have a dentist as part of its crew.
"Dental Readiness is as much of a battle force multiplier as any weapons systems upgrade we can get," said Lt. Cmdr. Bob Hein, executive officer of the destroyer USS Russell. "If we have a sailor that is down because of a dental casualty, (and they do happen), then our ship is not 100 percent ready to fight."
It is the job of Pearl Harbor's Naval Dental Center to ensure that the Pacific Fleet and its 13,000 sailors here are "dentally ready" to fight. It's motto: "Fit to Bite, Fit to Fight." To meet that challenge, it needs to ensure that its sailors are free of dental problems with no emergencies anticipated for a year at a time.
The Navy calls this condition "operationally dental ready." The Pearl Harbor facility is proud of its record of sending 65 surface warships and submarines in a row to sea fully 100 percent operationally dental ready. It hopes to increase that figure to 70 vessels by August when four subs and one warship leave here on a six-month deployment.
"It's unprecedented anywhere in the Navy," says Capt. Robert Hutto, the facility's commanding officer. "As far as we know, no other command has deployed more than one vessel at 100 percent ODR. Our policy is that no ship will deploy at less than 100 percent."
Hutto is proud of his clinic's record which over the past three years has resulted in only three medical dental emergencies at sea compared to 25 recorded by the Atlantic Fleet.
Hein said in his 14 years in the Navy: "I have never seen a dental unit as committed to the quality of life of our waterfront sailors or the warfare readiness of the ships as the dentists here in Pearl Harbor."
It's part of a Navywide initiative spearheaded by Pearl Harbor five years ago, said Hutto, a 30-year Navy veteran, to better the quality of life for sailors stationed here and to run the Pacific Fleet's dental operations in a more business-like manner.
"By being more efficient and more business like," said Hutto, a former surface warfare officer, "we can see more patients and ensure that they are more healthy. If their health is better, readiness will follow."
Hutto said winning the Hawaii State Awards for Excellence in 1997 helped the Navy dental clinic to scrutinize the way it operated since it was required to compare its operations to the private sector.Despite winning the award, Hutto said the examination by a team of civilian certified public accountants and Pentagon officials disclosed that the clinic was not profitable. "When comparing the difference between costs and the services we provided," Hutto said, "we were losing $500,000 a year."
That resulted in an examination of Navy dentistry practices against those of the private sector. "What we were doing then was inefficient. We were still following the one doctor, one chair, one technician, one patient, one hour principle. You don't see that being done downtown."
By adding more dental chairs and better utilizing the clinic's resources, Hutto said the clinic was able to do 2-1/2 times more work.
The clinic also got two dental vans and stationed them on the Pearl Harbor waterfront to ensure that the crews of all of the warships deploying for an extended period of time were given a clean bill of health. By taking the dental services to the ships meant saving time and ensured examining its entire crew before the ship left.
The vans are essentially mini-dental clinics on wheels capable of doing everything from examinations, X-rays, filings and cleaning. More complicated oral surgery such as root canals are referred to the Makalapa clinic which is staffed by 24 dentists, five hygienists, six University of Hawaii students and 95 military and civilian technicians. A third $250,000 mobile clinic will be delivered this fall.
That has resulted in Pearl Harbor having the highest level of sailors in the Navy who have healthy teeth.
Better utilization of the clinic's resources also freed up the dentists to provide services never offered to sailors before, Hutto said, ranging from multiple cleanings per year to teeth whitening and bleaching and cosmetic dentistry.
It also has meant that the dental clinic has gone from the red to the back with a cost return on its investment of more than $2 million.
The resulting savings and efficient operations meant the Navy system also benefited, Hutto said, since he was able to trim his staff of dentists by seven who were then reassigned to other mainland bases which were paying money to contract civilian dentists. Hutto hopes to export Pearl Harbor's success story to the Navy's other 14 dental commands when he assumes the job of chief of the Navy's dental operations in August.
Gregg K. Kakesako can be reached by phone at 294-4075
or by e-mail at gkakesako@starbulletin.com.