Dentaltown September 2021 - 62

SaaS solutions also have the benefi t of
scalability. The costs to scale with usage are
reasonable as well-as you expand and grow
your practice, your solution expands with
you. Robust security systems are in place in
the cloud, offering optimal safety capabilities
to ensure all patient data remains protected.
One of the key advantages of using a
SaaS-based practice management solution is
gaining instant access to new and improved
features for your system. As new features are
introduced-often every few weeks-these
capabilities are instantly available for everyone
to use. No download is required. While
practices with a hosted practice management
solution will also receive updates through
the cloud (rather than waiting on CDs
to install them on their own), updates in
a hosted environment happen only on a
periodic basis, and your practice system will
most likely be unavailable while updates are
being made on the back end.
With a cloud-based system, you can
Figs. 1 and 2: The third-party-hosted version of practice management software such
as SoftDent (Fig. 1, top) usually appears exactly the same as if it were being run on the
practice's own computer network (Fig. 2, bottom).
Understanding the difference
between a third-party hosted
environment and software as
a service (SaaS)
When it comes to your practice management
system, you've probably heard
about " the cloud, " but it's often used as
a catch-all term that can mean different
things to different people.
First, there's a hosted environment, in
which a third-party data center takes the legacy
software you've been working with (i.e. your
patient fi les) and essentially hosts it offsite.
Instead of having software on a computer in
your offi ce, it becomes virtual, giving you
remote access capabilities. This is ideal for
doctors or business owners with multiple
practice locations. With third-party hosting
capabilities, you can see all of your patients
from any location because you gain access to
their fi les no matter which offi ce you're in.
People often choose third-party hosting
for the familiarity. Don't think of it as
switching to a new practice management
62 SEPTEMBER 2021 // dentaltown.com
system; instead, you and your team have
the opportunity to move the platform
you've been utilizing for years to a virtual
network. For example, if you're used to
working in PracticeWorks or SoftDent on
your desktop, the hosted versions of either
PracticeWorks or SoftDent offer the exact
same interfaces you and your team are
already used to working with (Figs. 1 and
2). It provides familiarity but also introduces
doctors and team members to a very robust
and secure environment for their patient
information. This is an optimal bridge to
move to a cloud-based structure.
Then there's software as a service
(SaaS). It has all of the advantages of a
third-party hosted environment, but it's
browser-based. This means that as long as
you have an internet connection and the
login credentials, you can use it in its full
capacity (Figs. 3 and 4, p. 64), in the same
way you can access your personal email
from any computer as long as you know
the URL and your password.
tailor your solution to work exactly the
way you want and need. Over time, the
library of cloud applications will expand and
transform the meaning of dental practice
management. For the dental world, it's the
future of creating better patient engagement,
creating teledentistry applications and more.
What is a hybrid cloud?
For those who are interested in experiencing
the cloud but don't want to take
the leap, hybrid options are available. If you
and your team are happy with the practice
management software you're using, you
should keep using it. But there are certain
services and capabilities that can only be
supplied through a cloud-based solution.
With a hybrid cloud solution, you can
gain access to some of the services that exist
only in the cloud. For example, traditional
practice tasks like record keeping, charting
and scheduling can be linked to the cloud,
even if your full system isn't cloud-based.
If there happened to be an unexpected
snowstorm and you couldn't get to the
offi ce, you and your team members could
still access the day's schedule on the cloud
to let patients know you need to reschedule.
There would be no need to be sitting in front
of your offi ce desktop to do so.
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Dentaltown September 2021

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