Evidence, Empowerment & Evolution Dental Hygiene Leadership & Clinical Growth

 Dental hygiene leadership, clinical development, and preventive care take center stage as Lisa Hardill, RDH, shares evidence-based strategies shaping modern dentistry. From chairside care to DSO clinical leadership, this episode explores hygiene career growth, team collaboration, digital dentistry, and practice-wide impact.

Lisa Hardill RDH, BHADM, PG Cert    

 Lisa has been a registered dental hygienist since 2003, with experience spanning private practice, public health, and independent practice. In 2017, she expanded her career beyond the operatory, moving into dental sales and consulting with a focus on preventive products, practice growth strategies, implants, biomaterials, and digital dentistry. 

 This diverse experience led to her current role in Clinical Development with a leading Dental Service Organization, where she supports hundreds of dental hygienists and teams across Ontario. 

 Outside of her Clinical Development role, she serves as a Hygiene Coach with the Clear Aligner Leadership Bootcamp and as an Ambassador for both Women in Digital Dentistry and Dimensions of Dental Hygiene. Lisa also presents webinars and continuing education sessions across a variety of platforms, sharing practical, evidence-based strategies to help dental professionals elevate patient care and team collaboration. 

 A passionate writer, Lisa runs strictlydentalpro — a blog dedicated to leadership, clinical insights and empowering dental hygienists in their professional growth. She is also completing a Master’s in Oral Health Promotion to continue developing as a writer, educator, and researcher. Find her on Instagram at lisahardill.rdh. 

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music credit:  "Seize the Day" by Andrey Rossi

Transcript

I wanna welcome Lisa to the DSO hygienist today. Hi Lisa.

Hi everybody. I'm so, so, so excited to be here, Christine. I was really looking forward to it.

I'm excited to have you as well. You are so amazing. So I wanna just get right, started with the questions. This is how this goes. So what originally drew you to a dental hygiene career?

Oh my gosh. So back in the day, so I graduated dental hygiene in 2003, but as early as childhood, I had a childhood friend. Her mother was a hygienist, I had these memories of after school going over to her house and seeing her mom come in from work. Obviously at that time. Dental hygienist wore their scrubs in and outta the op, the practice.

Now there's obviously a lot more IPAC stuff around that, but I remember sitting down and asking her questions about her day. So very early on I had a peaked interest in the field and in high school it was my grade 11 year, I actually did a co-op for a full semester dental practice just down, down the street from my high school.

And I really got to experience the. Inner workings of a dental practice, obviously, other than being a patient, seeing everything from what was going on with, you know, developing x-rays back then. 'cause it was all manual developing. They did have a computer where a lot of stuff was starting to go into the computer, but oh my gosh, what's the name of that?

It was that black screen with the green.

Oh yeah.

for the, what is it, Christine?

Oh, I can,

think

I can't either.

 It was early on with the computer. Again, this is back in high school. I was only grade 11, so in the nineties and that's how things started off. And then I first actually was a dental assistant, so. When I took dental hygiene, there was that transition where you had to either be an assistant and then very soon after I did dental assisting, you didn't necessarily need that to apply to get into dental hygiene school. So the program I ended up getting into for dental hygiene, it was a two year that you could go directly into, you didn't need any sort of prior health and science or dental assisting or experience, work experience. But yeah, I had at that time too, it was really hard getting into hygiene. There was like easy 200 plus applicants. So it took me a couple years to get into hygiene, so I was working as a level two dental assistant. But always knew that that next step with dental hygiene, having a little bit more with the patient, a little bit more autonomy, really getting into providing the services, what was something that was really important to me.

So eventually I got in off a wait list. And I graduated in 2003, so been in the profession ever since. And obviously as, as you know, and as, as we've talked about, lots of different hats and different roles and more of a non-traditional role over the last few years, but it all kind of builded on each other, which was nice.

Yeah, I know some of the schools here, they are now requiring that you be a dental assistant prior to getting into hygiene school. But when I went to hygiene school, that wasn't the case. I had never been a dental assistant. Mm-hmm. So, but I know there's changing some of that.

full circle, right? It'll be interesting if some like I, that's not happening here where I am which is in Ontario and as you say that, it just made me think like it'd be interesting if they end up going back that route to, 'cause I mean there's for sure some benefits of having that dental assisting education, knowledge and experience that I think adds to, you know, different capabilities and comfort when you first start off as a dental hygienist.

I mean I can only speak to that 'cause that was my journey, but I feel like for me, it, it definitely helped set me up for success.

Yeah, I agree. There are some things I'm definitely not the one that's gonna do a temp crown or anything. I'm definitely not cross-trained. I can hold the suction. So when you first entered the profession, what did you envision your career looking like and how has that evolved over time?

I envisioned, initially it was working in a private practice, right? I, I worked with some amazing dentists and there was. A dentist early on that I worked with, I was her first hygienist and I thought, you know what? This is it. She's amazing. Incredible practice. Philosophy. Philosophy. We had great collaboration, but I think, you know, a couple years in, I definitely craved a little bit more of the coaching, the mentoring, the supporting fellow dental hygienists. So after a couple years in, I also started getting into peer assessing with our regulatory college here in Ontario. So the CDHO where I was doing some peer assessing around, you know, quality assurance and typical day stuff with dental hygiene. So I craved that, you know, peer to peer learning from each other, elevating our professional, our profession, supporting fellow dental professionals.

So that was, yeah, probably after three or four years being in the profession. And from there it just led to other opportunities where it was more, I think, really around hearing fellow dental hygienists out and elevating kind of their, experiencing their experience and really help bring kind of solutions to maybe some of the barriers they were facing several different work environments.

Yeah. I love that. I, I think that peer-to-peer collaboration is really huge. So what are you most excited to be working on right now?

Right now, well, obviously being kind of year end, when I look at even just more recently some special projects that I've been involved in, in my full-time role in the DSO space this year has been pretty exciting 'cause I was able to work on some special projects with just really looking at. Something is simple, but super important.

And that's like the instrument needs for dental hygienists, right? And really looking at, you know, how can we ensure that they have what they need for the patient experience to help reduce hand risk fatigue and really ensure, you know, when it comes to things like sharpening a great selection of instruments.

Exploring things like sharpen free instruments, different newer innovative technology that's really, you know, obviously targeting biofilm and elevating the whole dental hygiene treatment plan as well as care. That was a lot of, I think, what was part of, kind of some different initiatives and projects I was at working on this year.

So really excited to continue to see where that goes next year with the practices I'm supporting and you know. really looking at what's their individual practice setup like and what are their goals and how can we really kind of ensure that they are set up above and beyond, you know, all the learning development you know, their internal goals as a team, but also ensuring that they have things like the equipment to bring a lot of, I think, fulfillment and ease to making their goals happen with their patient care.

Yeah, I've been temping recently and I love when I go to an office and there's two instruments, a sickle and a curette. So are you working, are you working on anything outside of your clinical role?

So outside my role obviously full-time with clinical development with, large DSO here in Canada. I do a lot of, I would say, you know, exploring what's out there from a presenting perspective. So definitely some content creations, some CE development the last couple years. Partnering with some platforms and developing content around you know, those topics that are really dear to my heart.

So things like elevating you know, the use of technology integration, motivational interviewing, stuff like that. So outside of my role for sure, some ce more webinar based. And then I have my blog. So definitely getting into regular content, I. But at the end of the day comes from the inspiration that I'm seeing day in, day out with all of the amazing hygienists that I get to interact with. So lucky that there's just so much and content that I can draw from. So with my blog, strictly Dental Pro really trying to kind of build that out as a place that's really helping inspire, get hygienists reconnected with their passion, why they entered dental hygiene in the first place, and really see that true value that they bring. With their patient care, but also the practice. Right? Dental hygienists are the cornerstone. Their services and them in the practice is a critical, critical area for sure. So a bit I would say outside. Wrapping up my, I've been working on my master's in oral health promotion, so nonstop learning, I would say.

That will be wrapping up actually this summer of 2026. So a lot of my extra time is spent on school related things.

Congratulations.

Thank you.

So what shifts have you seen when dental teams collaborate more effectively, especially between dentists and hygienists? I know, like you said, we're the cornerstone, which. I really believe we're the relationship builders because they, the patients see us the most, and that's where a lot of that comes in.

But what have you experienced?

I would say with the shifts, I mean, collaboration is huge. There's so much opportunity for further collaboration within a practice. You know, as dentists, as hygienists, we're working in our ops, it is very siloed, so. I know we've all seen so many examples of like, you have to be super intentional around the collaboration. So I would say some big shifts is when there's alignment with the verbiage, right? When as a team you're coming together, really and talking through like what are, what are the ways we best wanna describe, whether it's certain procedures, whether it's active inflammation. Or even something like just a cleaning, right?

No, it's a dental hygiene therapy appointment. Active therapy, whether it's continuing care. So big shifts happen when the teams get aligned on powerful, impactful verbiage. And then also I feel like huge opportunity during, let's say the dental hygiene visits that do involve a diagnostic exam with the dentist when there's a very clear. Prompt and there's that synergy between the hygienist, the dentist, and they have a system of sharing the findings, you know, in a structured way where the patients get to hear that out loud for maybe a second time, right? Because most likely the hygienist has already opened conversation up with the, with the patient prior to the dentist coming in for the examination.

So. To me, that's kind of leading to that true diag, that true co-diagnosis, right? And when a patient can see hygienist and dentist aligned on the same page supporting each other, that's when some real shifts happen with the team, with patient care and patients feeling really confident in saying yes to some needed treatment.

So. I, I love seeing when that happens with a team, but it, it takes some intention, it takes a lot of focusing on the communication, the alignment, and getting everyone on board. So that's, I mean, a big part of what I do with my role, which, which I love. And I feel like that's, that's an ongoing area of need and support that we, we lead into a lot.

Yeah, and I actually, I had a practice where not only did the patient hear it from me, from the doctor, but then the doctor had the front desk person come and repeat it to the front desk person so that the patient was hearing it multiple, multiple times, which I don't know what the statistic is of how many times we have to hear something before it actually clicks, but that, I thought that was really helpful to have them hear it multiple, multiple times.

Such an amazing point, Christine. I love that you mention that because as much as like the clinical are aligned, the admin, the management has to be to, to be as well. So you got it. There can be all of that happening clinically, but 100% having admin team members speak the same language, really support what has already been explained in the operatories is huge area of importance.

So we're very much on the same page there.

So what would your message be to every hygienist right now about their worth, their impact, the potential? It seems like we've been getting a lot of not love.

I mean, I'm sure it's different, right? It's different in parts of the world, different between US and Canada and everything. But I would say it stems back to what we were earlier. What we were talking about earlier, I mean, dental hygienists are such a huge, important. Person within a practice. Right? And at the end of the day, the services that they are providing, I think hygienists, we need to lead this.

We need to believe in it. And I know we do like the services we are managing, we are providing, like they're   📍  📍  📍 changing lives, right? It's all about managing that oral inflammation and getting a patient to health. without health, you know. Nothing else really  matters. So a lot of, you know, the more complex treatment plans and a lot of the things that really then take off from getting a patient's oral condition to a place of stability, right?

Where we're managing that oral inflammation active perio I mean, that's really that first step and having a really preventative driven. Forward thinking practice. yeah, I mean, I think for hygienists we need to really understand our worth. We need to speak up. We need to really advocate for what we know is best for our patients and for our profession, which is, you know, we are adding so much value to the team, the practice as a whole and to the patient services at a practice.

So from your coaching perspective, what small changes could create the biggest impact on, on reducing burnout?

Burnout. I.   📍  📍  📍 Goes nicely from the prior question because reduce burnout, like hygienists need to be able to speak, speak up, right? They can't let let things kind of   📍  📍 fester. So if they're in a practice and they know certain things need to change, they need to speak up, they need to speak to their colleagues, they need to speak to management, they need to speak with those that are  there to so support them because without hearing them out. Change management can't happen, things can't be modified to really support them and their career fulfillment, and ultimately the growth and the success of the practice. So I would say definitely they need to speak up. They need to take those moments to reflect, to really know what is important for me to be. Staying out loud, loud right now and making a priority conversation with the team or a particular person at the practice, right? So taking those moments to reflect speak up and take moments for them, right? Whether it's something like the, the breath work or their mindset, when they can show up at practice in the right frame of mind, they know that's gonna have a direct impact on their day as a pool. So ultimately each day they end feeling fulfilled, feeling somewhat energized, right? Like if you're feeling completely drained at the end of every single day, eventually burnout's gonna creep up, right? And we've all experienced that in different work and practice environments. So acknowledging that and doing some of these things that they're not small, but they're really important to prioritize. I'd say

Yeah.

things that come to mind.

Yeah, I think mindset is a huge, a huge part of it. There's like really fun music I always listen to right before I walk into my office because

that. That's so good.

Yeah, because it gets me in the right frame of mind and I've gotta stop worrying about all the things I can't. I'm at work. There's none, none of that other stuff I can change at this moment.

So I need to put that aside and concentrate on my patients, which I think sometimes, you know, we all get in into our lives and into our own heads. Let's face it.

and the power of music is pretty powerful that I, I love, like if you, you can play a certain song and it can just like shift your whole, your whole mood. So that's important.

So how do you see the DSO space setting up dental hygienists for success and career fulfillment?

So it's been pretty fascinating. I mean, I've been in the DSO space for over four years now, and it's really the fact that they're building a community. They're building a community for. within the network obviously there's different unique initiatives and opportunities based on role as well, right?

Whether it's management, admin, clinical. Even as specific as as hygiene. So I think the community is huge. There's so much to leverage from resources to even being able to sit down and speak to someone like myself, right? Where I get to pull in a lot of experiences, things that I see working really well you know. Upwards of close to a hundred practices I'm supporting. So the opportunity for connection and learning from each other, the community that we're all ultimately here to kind of rise together and really leveraging a lot of amazing resources that are specifically built for the needs of the practices, the teams. Within the DSO space, right? Because it's all about hearing from them and then really curating things that we know are ultimately going to meet the needs of what we're hearing in the industry, within the province, within the region, right? So that, I mean, ultimately with all the different practice environments I've experienced over the, over my career whether it be. A private practice public health, like you just, it's a different sense of community and opportunity within the DSO space. And I think a lot of people internally sometimes, and definitely externally, they, they don't see that. It's like you really need to, peel it back and understand, like, look at what is here to help my growth, my practice's growth, and ultimately benefit the patient care.

Yeah, I, I really think the peer to peer collaboration in my D so is wonderful. I love my fellow hygienists.

Incredible.

So in your opinion, how do we as dental teams build trust with our patients? I know that's a bedrock of, of getting treatment conversion. So how do you think, in your opinion, how we do that?

Yeah, and trust is so important. I think there's times where I know I've personally maybe taken it for granted, or you just assume. You assume that you have the trust, right? It's an existing patient. It's even a newer patient where you feel like, you know, you've got good rapport going you're like, the trust is there, but it, it takes a while to establish. And I think that ultimately having a real keen focus on hearing your patients out, the time to listen. Right. dental professionals, we can tend to do a lot of the talking, right? And I get it. A lot of the times we're in the patient's mouth, so it doesn't allow them as much opportunity. So when we do sit that patient up and we're having that eye to eye contact, we're showing them things like a 3D scan. perhaps they're radiographs with ai, layered in where there's obviously a lot of different things that they can see and ask questions about. So. Definitely building the trust starts with having the intention around just hearing the patient out, so listening to them and giving that space for that to take place, right?

And then taking that information and not just dismissing it. You need to really incorporate that into the conversation progresses and really making it that two-way conversation with the patient. What is it that they need? What are their goals? And then how can we match that to their potential treatment needs? Right. That's ultimately, I see a big part of building the trust. I mean, there's a lot of things that feed into that, but would say that's the first thing that comes to mind for me.

Well, I'd love to hear a little bit more about your blog. So tell me a little bit about it. What should you expect when you get on it? What do you hope people learn?

Yeah. Thanks Christine for asking. So would say probably over the last six months I've had the blog for quite some time and it was something that I was kind of, you know, just writing and publishing to every now and then. There wasn't really a set cadence, but over the last six months have, I kind of went through the content that was on it and I was like, you know what?

There really needs to be. very clear purpose behind this blog site, and it's all about bringing, again, clear workflows, best practice mindset strategies to dental professionals, mainly dental hygienists. I would say a lot of the content is targeting, but for sure anyone in the dental space would Ben benefit from the content that I am writing on, on the blog.

So. Yeah, when they land on the blog, I have an area where there's some upcoming webinars, some different ambassador groups and things that I'm part of. And then obviously lot of the weekly content that I'm putting out there is things that I'm hearing and inspired from within the profession that I'm, know, experiencing week after week and. it's all about learning from each other, so putting it out there and really I think bringing awareness to some key areas is important right within the DSO space. And then this is a way for me to connect and share like, more broadly, right under kind of that more strictly dental pro brand that I've been building over the last couple years.

So if our listeners would like to get ahold of you, how can they reach out? What's the, where's, where can they find the blog? Give us a little bit more about you how people could reach you if they wanna reach out.

So I would say my main social would be Instagram. So it is Lisa Hardell Rdh. For the longest time I had the strictly Dental Pro as my handle, but I decided more recently to change it to my name. So Lisa Hardell Rdh for Instagram, obviously I am on LinkedIn as well, just with my. My name Lisa Hardell, and then my blog site is strictly dental pro.com, so just throwing that in your Google search and it'll pop right up.

Well, thanks so much, Lisa, for being on today. It really was wonderful to have you.

that was great. I really appreciate you asking and spending the time and it was so great, Christine. Thank you so much.