Room turnover

Room turnover is the gap between one patient leaving a chair and the next one being seated: breakdown, disinfection, sterilization flow and setup. It is invisible on the production report, but every minute of it is chair time nobody is producing in.

Ryan tracks it monthly alongside on-time starts, case acceptance and hygiene reappointment, with an ideal range of under ten minutes. It belongs on the dental assistant's scorecard, with setup accuracy, because the assistant is the person who controls it. Small inefficiencies here add up to thousands of dollars of idle time a month.

The other way to cut turnover is to need fewer of them. Doing diagnosed treatment the same day, while the patient is already in the chair, saves a separate setup, breakdown and room turnover, and treatment completed today cannot be canceled next week.