Clinical chart

The chart is the first tab of the patient's clinical record. It draws the mouth the way a dentist reads it — four rows of teeth, one five-surface glyph per tooth, the planned rows outside the present ones — with the treatment list beside it and the plans, images and history beneath it. Nothing on the chart is edited in place: a recorded row is evidence, so a correction is a new row that supersedes the old one.

Reading the chart

The chart is laid out the way Dentally lays it out, one to one.

• Four rows. From the top: the upper treatment row on its grey band, the upper teeth as they are today, the lower teeth as they are today, the lower treatment row on its grey band. The two present rows meet at the bite, as in the mouth; the planned rows sit outside them, next to the tooth numbers (8 down to 1 from each side). R and L mark the patient's sides.
• Five surfaces. Each tooth is a square with a smaller square inside it, joined at the corners: the outer faces are buccal (towards the cheek) and lingual, the sides are mesial (towards the midline) and distal, the centre is the biting surface — occlusal on a back tooth, the incisal edge (a wide bar) on a front tooth. Molars show their fissure as a line down the centre; a child's tooth is drawn as a circle around its centre square.
• Icons and colours. Every procedure code carries a chart icon — a shape, a colour and an optional short text, set under Settings → Procedure codes — and the chart draws it on the tooth the row names: a filling colours its faces, a crown is a full circle that replaces the square, an implant a blue circle with its grey connector bar in the gap above the tooth, a root filling a post down the tooth, an extraction a cross, a finding such as caries a small dot, wear or mobility a word at the middle of its face. The defaults are Dentally's palette (tan crowns, blue implants, ink-blue posts, yellow composites, green wear). The row tells you the status: the two middle rows hold what is in the mouth — active findings and completed procedures — and the outer, grey rows what is planned or started. A missing or extracted tooth is a blank cell that still takes the pointer. Each surface's accessible name reads the icon and its status ("Crown · Planned").
• Hover. Resting the pointer on a tooth tints its column and opens a panel under it listing everything charted there — the tooth and the name, then the date, the practitioner and where it came from (Base chart for a finding, the plan's price list for a procedure). An empty tooth offers the treatments your practice charts most on that kind of tooth (upper molars, lower incisors …); one click plans the treatment there. A practice that has charted nothing on that kind of tooth yet reads where they will appear.
• Click. With nothing armed, a click on a tooth opens its menu: Status (Unerupted, Partially erupted, Present, Missing, Extracted, Implanted, Retained root — a tick marks the current one) and Diagnosis (Drifted or rotated mesially or distally, Over erupted, Impacted, Mobile). A status is one finding per tooth: choosing another supersedes the current one in a single write, Present resolves it, and a diagnosis is recorded beside it. Each item is one of the practice's finding codes, so it shows only when the catalogue has that code and reads in the practice's own words. With a treatment armed from the list, the click charts it on that surface instead.
• Layout. The record's tabs sit right under the patient's name, the active one underlined in blue. On the Chart tab the treatment list stays put on the left while the chart, the strip and the open panel scroll together on the right; the chart fills its column (a narrower window shrinks the teeth rather than scrolling sideways).
• Dentitions. The joined PD / PTD / DD / DTD segments show or hide the permanent and deciduous rows (solid blue when on); the deciduous rows switch themselves on when a child's tooth carries a live row and sit outside the permanent ones with their letters (E to A). The ⇤ button beside them hides the treatment list. The cog in the strip, Charting preferences, holds the notation (FDI, Universal or Palmer — the record stores one identity) and the four-row or two-row layout.
• Keyboard. The chart is one tab stop: the arrow keys walk between teeth, Shift + arrows between the surfaces of a tooth, Enter activates (the menu, or the armed treatment).

The treatment list

The list on the left has two bordered tabs, Treatment list and Plan templates. The first holds your catalogue's acts, then its finding codes, each row with a star, the code in its grey column, the chart icon and the name; the category picker, the search box and the sort button (code or name) shape it, and the A–Z rail down its right edge jumps to a letter. Star a code to keep it at the top of the list on this browser. Click a code to arm it: the next surface you click opens the dialog with that code and site already chosen, so a crown on 16 is two clicks; the armed row is highlighted. Click the code again, or press Escape, to put it down. A template on the second tab applies to the open draft plan in one click.

Recording a finding

The finding is recorded as active under your professional registration at that location. Dentists, hygienists and therapists can record findings; a nurse or a front-desk member cannot.

An active finding can be resolved (it no longer applies, with a date and an optional reason) or marked in error (it was never true). Both keep the row visible with its new status.

Planning a procedure

The fee comes from the price list's fee schedule as it stands today, with the list's own override applied when there is one, and stays on the procedure. A code without a fee on that schedule cannot be planned: add the fee under Settings → Fees & prices first.

A planned procedure can be started (in progress on a service date), completed (by you, at a location, on a service date) or referred out. A completed procedure cannot go back.

Removing a planned procedure

A procedure that was planned but never started or completed can be removed without the password step: click Remove on its row, give a reason, and it is voided under your name rather than under a professional registration. It stays on the chart, struck through, like any other void. Anyone who can plan a procedure can remove one; a started, completed or referred-out procedure shows Void only and can only be voided by a clinician. Declining a treatment plan removes its planned procedures the same way.

Voiding, removing or correcting a procedure that a presented or accepted treatment plan cites returns that plan to draft as a new version, so it can be presented again with the current procedures.

Beneath the chart

The strip under the chart carries, from the left, the round + (Record finding, Plan procedure, New plan) and the open treatment plan as one solid blue tab, #number, whose arrow lists the other open plans with their status and New plan (with no open plan, a New plan button stands there instead); on the right, Images (with its count), BPE at a UK practice (a red dot when the patient has no BPE in the last twelve months — click it to open the Perio tab), History and the charting-preferences cog. The open panel — the plan, the images or the history — sits in one bordered card under the strip. The plan tab is described in Treatment plans.

Images

Every x-ray and photo filed on the patient, newest first. A thumbnail loads when it scrolls into view (each one is a recorded read of that document); click it for the full image, with Open original to download it. + uploads one or more files — JPEG, PNG, WebP, GIF or a PDF export, each up to 32 MB (the ceiling is the server's memory while it encrypts the file, not a cost) — with the kind (x-ray or photo), the date taken and the location. The same file uploaded twice onto the same patient is one document, so a retry after a dropped connection never files a duplicate. DICOM files are not accepted: export them as images first.

History

One table of every finding and every procedure of the patient, newest first: the plan it belongs to, the date, the site, the name in bold with its note under it, the status as a coloured pill and the fee. Superseded, invalidated and voided rows stay, struck through, so the record stays legible. Untick Include uncompleted to see only what was done; the search box filters by name or note.

Who can do what

A button is only half of it: every act is recorded under a professional registration, so an owner or manager who is not a linked practitioner with the right profession is refused when they try, and a nurse cannot record a finding or a procedure under their own name.

Every read of the chart and every write is recorded in the activity log against the patient.