Dentaltown October 2016 - 18


professional courtesy
column

Waiting for Something Better
The release of the newest iPhone is always greeted
with excitement, skepticism and some criticism.
This is the reality of new technology-developing
the newest thing requires a bit of a risk, because you're
charged with predicting the future. Apple and most of
the world knows that wireless is everywhere, and yet there
are people angry with the departure of a headphone jack.
I don't remember people complaining this much
when my home phone made the transition from a corded
rotary-dial model to a cordless push-button one. There
are self-driving cars logging millions of miles in an
effort to remove our steering wheels-will that shift be
more difficult than the headphone jack? Time will tell.
Dentistry is no stranger to technology. If that made
you chuckle, then you may be one of the frustrated fans
of technology who don't think dentistry is innovating
fast enough.
The dental profession has long enjoyed a relative
slow adoption of new technology, and there are good
reasons for this delay. First, it's expensive to adapt
some technologies to a profession that's faced with so
many different regulations-FDA, HIPAA and others.
It's also expensive to buy technology because so few
dentists live on "the bleeding edge," wanting to be the
first on their block with the latest and greatest. And
third, buying new technology that's soon replaced by
newer technology is very expensive for the dentist who
bought the first generation. It isn't long before you are
waiting for version 2 or 3. With these issues in mind,
I'd like to share a couple areas where I see opportunity.

Digital radiographs
I've had a "paperless" or "chartless" office for 10 years
now, but there's still no elegant way
to send a patient's records to another
dental office. You want to send X-rays?
You have to send a viewer, or .JPG files
that the other dentist can import but
not modify. I can't begin to tell you
the number of "copies" I've received
that are useless. Digital X-rays have
excellent market penetration, but
sharing images is still a nightmare.

CAD/CAM technology
This wonderful technology is fi nally starting to
become something you might use on every new patient,
not just people receiving treatment.
I recently had a phone call from an implant patient
who was traveling out of town and thought he broke his
crown. (Turns out it just came off-darn implant cement!)
I thought this was the golden opportunity to call the
lab and ask it to mill me another one. Unfortunately, I
discovered that these files are retained for only a limited
amount of time before they're discarded.
I can understand a situation like mine may only
present itself once in a blue moon, but I would have
been thrilled to be able to receive a new crown in the
mail before the patient's return flight hit the ground.
I'm not sure what the solution will be-perhaps
we can get a copy of the file for these cases and store
it in the patient's chart, or the lab could offer a service
where it would maintain a folder of your cases in their
cloud storage for a small fee. Imagine having a scan of
your patient's complete dentition at their new patient
exam, and sending the prep scan when you need to
have a crown made.

Clinical notes
I can ask my iPhone for a weather report from
across the room or ask Alexa to order a pizza, but my
practice management software can't take notes while
I'm having a conversation with my patient. Far-fetched?
Not really. There are voice-recognition programs out
there today, but nothing I have seen is well-integrated
into the practice management software.
What technology are you waiting for? Is there an
innovation that dentistry needs to adopt? I'd love to read
your comments to this article online. In the meantime, we
can rest assured knowing we are in a "people profession"
and that will probably never change. After all, do you
know anybody looking for a self-drilling dentist?
My email is tom@dentaltown.com and on Twitter:
@ddsTom. ■
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by Thomas Giacobbi, DDS, FAGD, editorial director, Dentaltown magazine

18

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Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Dentaltown October 2016
