Dentaltown November 2020 - 14

professional courtesy
column

Ask Not What You Can
Do for Your Software ...
I am the first line of tech support in my practice,
mostly because I've always had an interest in technology-and dentists like to fi x things.
Over the past 18 years, I've made countless calls to
Dentrix, an experience that has empowered me to solve
many routine problems. Last month was a different
story, though: One of my team members came to me
and said, "Dentrix disappeared from the consult room
computer. Even the desktop shortcuts are gone."
My mind went to malware or a virus, so I called
Dentrix tech support, which solved the short-term issue by
reinstalling the software on the workstation. I remained
uneasy, though, because they hadn't seen anything like
this before. The root cause remained a mystery.
The rest of the day went well but the following day,
a different workstation lost the program. This played
over and over for a week straight, with no answers. By
the time the pattern repeated again a week later-with
the same computers losing the program a second
time-I was in touch with higher-level tech support at
Dentrix, who were studying this phenomenon because
it was showing up in other dental practices. It's a relief
to know you're not alone in your misery (even if what
you really want is a solution).
In Week 3, my support contact called with an answer:
Dell Support Assist, a utility program that runs in the
background to keep computers running well with the
latest drivers and updates, has an antivirus component
that was treating Dentrix like a virus. This program
runs on a schedule, which explains the pattern of
workstations removing the application: Only the ones
that had scheduled scans had been
affected so far.
This series of unfortunate events
underscores the importance of your
practice management software to
the operation of your practice. This
month's poll questions (p. 22) focus
on practice management software,
and I was particularly interested
in the nearly even split of votes of
which areas of software need the most

improvement. Compatibility, customization, reliability
and user experience were all equal concerns.
Another question pointed to dentists desiring an
app for secure, remote access to their software. It's a bit
surprising that in this world of apps, smartphones and
tablets that we don't already have a great app companion to
the major dental practice management software systems.
Access to patient information after hours is important.
Accomplishing this task now with third-party solutions
makes a cumbersome, remote connection. Fingerprints
and facial recognition have added layers of security to
our mobile devices that should make development of
an app more appealing and logical.
In the poll, Townies also expressed wanting inventory
management tied to procedures. Imagine for a moment
that your practice management software could analyze
the procedures on the schedule and generate your supply
order. (Many businesses around the world already have
software that does this.) Once the current inventory is
known, it's simply a matter of calculating the procedures
per item. While supplies don't represent the biggest piece
of your overhead, there is a significant amount of waste
from expired product and lost production for items that
were not ordered in a timely manner.
Other notable takeaways: 22% of Townies say that
cloud-based software is desirable. Always up-to-date and
accessible, this is an option that should always be on the
table-if only for the security of not losing data hosted
on a single, personal server. Critics who raise the alarm
about outages due to poor internet connections should
realize how rare this occurs. Lastly, some Townies are
still looking for better online scheduling for patients.
Most of us already have this feature in some form, but
there are areas of improvement for sure. As machine
learning and artificial intelligence increases, hopefully
software companies improve as well to meet our needs.
What do you wish for from your practice management
software? What are some of the tools you are currently
using to make your practice run more efficiently? Please
share your stories and comments in the online version
of this article at dentaltown.com/magazine. Reach me
at tom@dentaltown.com or on Twitter @ddsTom. ■

by Thomas Giacobbi, DDS, FAGD, editorial director, Dentaltown magazine

NOVEMBER 2020 // dentaltown.com

DT1120_ProfessionalCourtesy_AG.indd 14

10/20/20 11:38 AM

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Dentaltown November 2020

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Dentaltown November 2020