{"id":28919,"date":"2026-05-01T12:00:04","date_gmt":"2026-05-01T17:00:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.oraldna.com\/trends-in-salivary-testing\/?p=28919"},"modified":"2026-03-19T13:19:21","modified_gmt":"2026-03-19T18:19:21","slug":"most-of-my-career-i-measured-the-wrong-thing-and-how-oraldna-forced-me-to-change-my-scorecard-part-two","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.oraldna.com\/trends-in-salivary-testing\/index.php\/2026\/05\/01\/most-of-my-career-i-measured-the-wrong-thing-and-how-oraldna-forced-me-to-change-my-scorecard-part-two\/","title":{"rendered":"Most of My Career, I Measured the Wrong Thing (And How OralDNA Forced Me to Change My Scorecard) &#8211; Part Two"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.dentistsofwestcolumbia.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone wp-image-27881\" src=\"https:\/\/www.oraldna.com\/trends-in-salivary-testing\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/west-columbia_logo.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"569\" height=\"137\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Last week, we explored the awakening that comes from seeing the unseen. This week, Jonathan dives into the hard truth: a technically perfect Scaling and Root Planing (SRP) doesn\u2019t always equal success. We\u2019ll see how embracing an outcome-focused mindset changes not just the approach to care, but the results and the satisfaction hygienists and patients alike experience.<\/span><\/p>\n<h3><b>The Hard Truth: Great SRP With Bad Outcomes Is Not a Win<\/b><\/h3>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">This is where my mindset truly flipped. I had to admit to myself:<\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"list-style-type: none;\">\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">A beautifully executed SRP with minimal, short-lived change in a patient\u2019s disease status is not a success.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It\u2019s just a well-performed procedure.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">That stung. Because I take pride in my hands. My technique. My charts. My consistency.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">But OralDNA\u00ae exposed the gap between <\/span><b>what I was doing <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">and <\/span><b>what was actually changing<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">. I started seeing patterns:<\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"list-style-type: none;\">\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Cases where I felt like I absolutely crushed the treatment\u2026 but the retest still showed high levels of key pathogens.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Cases where we dialed in the protocol\u2014irrigation, laser-assisted bacterial reduction, antimicrobials, probiotics, recall frequency <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">and <\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">home care\u2014and you could literally watch the pathogen profile shrink and stabilize on the report.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Same hygienist. Same hands. Different information. Different plan. <\/span><b>Completely different outcomes.<\/b><\/p>\n<h3><b>How Being Outcome-Focused Looks in My Operatory Now<\/b><\/h3>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Here\u2019s what being outcome-focused\u2014<\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">truly <\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">outcome-focused\u2014looks like in my world today:<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>My mental scorecard has changed.<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I still care how many quads of SRP I complete. But I care more about:<\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"list-style-type: none;\">\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">How many patients showed a meaningful reduction in high-risk bacteria.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">How many bleeding sites actually shut down and stayed down.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">How many retests show we\u2019re on the right track\u2014or expose that we\u2019re not done yet.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h3><b>I don\u2019t guess anymore. I test.<\/b><\/h3>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">If you\u2019re perio or medically high-risk, we\u2019re talking an OralDNA saliva test. Not as a gadget. Not as a sales pitch.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">As a <\/span><b>standard of care for clarity.<\/b><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"list-style-type: none;\">\n<ul>\n<li aria-level=\"1\"><b>I\u2019m more honest with myself and with patients.<\/b><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">If the pathogen profile hasn\u2019t shifted enough, I don\u2019t high-five myself for a \u201cgreat cleaning.\u201d I dig deeper:<\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"list-style-type: none;\">\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Did we miss something?<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Do we need to adjust the plan?<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Is the patient ready to step up at home?<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><b>I get more satisfaction from the <\/b><b><i>long game <\/i><\/b><b>than from the one visit.<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Don\u2019t get me wrong\u2014I still love a clean root surface. That will never change.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">But what lights me up now is pulling that retest, seeing the changes, and knowing:<\/span><\/p>\n<p><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">We didn\u2019t just work hard. We made a real difference.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n<h3><b>The Bottom Line: OralDNA Didn\u2019t Just Change My Protocol. It Changed My Mind.<\/b><\/h3>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">If I had to sum up the shift, it\u2019s this:<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Old mindset: <\/b><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cIf I do more treatment, I\u2019m more successful.\u201d<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n<p><b>New mindset: <\/b><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cIf my patients are healthier, more stable, and better informed\u2014and I can prove it\u2014we\u2019re successful.\u201d<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">OralDNA gave me the missing piece to live in that second mindset with confidence. It took my frustration with \u201cstarting over every recall\u201d and turned it into a structured, trackable, outcome-driven approach.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I stopped measuring my value only by the procedures I completed.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I started measuring it by the <\/span><b>outcomes my patients carry out the door.<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">And once you see it that way, there\u2019s really no going back.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">If you\u2019re a hygienist or dentist feeling that same quiet frustration\u2014working hard, doing \u201call the things,\u201d but not seeing enough lasting change\u2014this is my honest take: <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It might not be your hands. It might be your <\/span><b>scorecard<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">OralDNA helped me rewrite mine. And in the process, it reshaped my entire career from treatment-focused\u2026 to outcome-obsessed.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.oraldna.com\/get-started\/\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone wp-image-28177 size-large\" src=\"https:\/\/www.oraldna.com\/trends-in-salivary-testing\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/OralDNA_Banners-2-1024x293.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"750\" height=\"215\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.oraldna.com\/trends-in-salivary-testing\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/OralDNA_Banners-2-1024x293.png 1024w, https:\/\/www.oraldna.com\/trends-in-salivary-testing\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/OralDNA_Banners-2-300x86.png 300w, https:\/\/www.oraldna.com\/trends-in-salivary-testing\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/OralDNA_Banners-2-768x219.png 768w, https:\/\/www.oraldna.com\/trends-in-salivary-testing\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/OralDNA_Banners-2-1536x439.png 1536w, https:\/\/www.oraldna.com\/trends-in-salivary-testing\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/OralDNA_Banners-2-2048x585.png 2048w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 750px) 100vw, 750px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Last week, we explored the awakening that comes from seeing the unseen. This week, Jonathan dives into the hard truth: a technically perfect Scaling and Root Planing (SRP) doesn\u2019t always equal success. We\u2019ll see how embracing an outcome-focused mindset changes not just the approach to care, but the results and the satisfaction hygienists and patients <a class=\"read-more\" href=\"https:\/\/www.oraldna.com\/trends-in-salivary-testing\/index.php\/2026\/05\/01\/most-of-my-career-i-measured-the-wrong-thing-and-how-oraldna-forced-me-to-change-my-scorecard-part-two\/\">Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":215,"featured_media":28914,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[57,10,110],"tags":[9,48,12,243,125,147,17,112,45,247,236,3,46],"class_list":["post-28919","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-oral-systemic","category-periodontal-disease","category-salivary-diagnostics","tag-bacterial-testing","tag-bleeding-on-probing","tag-dental-bacterial-test","tag-dental-hygienist","tag-individualized-patient-care","tag-oral-microbiome","tag-oral-systemic-connection","tag-patient-education","tag-perio-services","tag-personalized-care","tag-rdh","tag-salivary-diagnostics","tag-salivary-testing"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.oraldna.com\/trends-in-salivary-testing\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/Dentists-of-West-Columbia-Featured-Image.png","jetpack_sharing_enabled":false,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7W16z-7wr","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.oraldna.com\/trends-in-salivary-testing\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28919"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.oraldna.com\/trends-in-salivary-testing\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.oraldna.com\/trends-in-salivary-testing\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.oraldna.com\/trends-in-salivary-testing\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/215"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.oraldna.com\/trends-in-salivary-testing\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28919"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.oraldna.com\/trends-in-salivary-testing\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28919\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":28921,"href":"https:\/\/www.oraldna.com\/trends-in-salivary-testing\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28919\/revisions\/28921"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.oraldna.com\/trends-in-salivary-testing\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/28914"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.oraldna.com\/trends-in-salivary-testing\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28919"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.oraldna.com\/trends-in-salivary-testing\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28919"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.oraldna.com\/trends-in-salivary-testing\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28919"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}