Creating Your Personal Environment - PATTERSON

Make Technology Work for You
By Anita Jupp
Technology is here to stay and will continue to become
more sophisticated and advanced. With many continued
technological advances, it’s sometimes hard to keep
up and unless your practice is fully prepared, stress
and inefficiency may follow. Unfortunately, the major
problem for most practices is the lack of team training
in necessary technology. Dentists invest a great deal
of money in technology and it’s vital that they receive a
return on their investment. Equipment sitting collecting
dust is a waste of money. Computers especially are
under utilized to monitor the success of a practice and
find out where there’s lost revenue. In addition, utilizing
the computer for marketing purposes is inexpensive,
fast and efficient yet rarely taken advantage of.
EagleSoft by Patterson, is an excellent integrated
software product and I am totally impressed with the
information you can get related to practice building,
monitoring stats and of course, patient education.
Using Technology to Enhance Case Acceptance
Dental technology has grown in leaps and bounds over
the past 10 years. It’s now possible to show your patient
how their smile will look after extensive treatment, a
tool that most dentists only dreamed of having at their
disposal in the past. Now that we have these wonderful
tools available, I find that many dentists don’t use them
to their fullest extent.
A great example of multimedia tools is the CAESY
patient education system (www.caesy.ca) which can
be used in conjunction with any practice management
software and is also fully integrated with Patterson
EagleSoft (www.eaglesoft.ca).
Imaging systems are a fantastic way for using a
patient’s own photo to provide a realistic outcome of
the treatment. Giving your patient this realistic view
is probably the best way to show them how beautiful
their own smile could be. When printing photos, put
in a disclaimer that the images were produced by a
computer and that final results may vary.
If you have an imaging system in your practice, using it
to the fullest extent would include:
• Providing your patient with their before and after
photos in their take home Patient Portfolio
• Before and After photo attached to a follow up
Treatment pending letter
• Before and After photo attached to a Treatment
Acceptance or Undecided letter
www.pattersondental.ca
Anita Jupp is an international
lecturer and practice coach with
the Advanced Dental Education
Institute. Anita brings over 30
years dental experience to the
table and has helped thousands
of professionals to reach their
full practice potential.
Offices without imaging systems have a number of
excellent options as well.
• Intraoral cameras to show patients treatment options
• Before & After DVDs and videos
• Computerized Patient Education systems (CAESY)
• Before & After books and photos
• PowerPoint presentations, either chairside or with a
Treatment Coordinator
• Patient education brochures
There are many fantastic imaging systems on the market
today and I highly recommend that each practice make
a formal investment in the technology to help improve
patient education and case acceptance rates.
To complement your imaging system, incorporate
PowerPoint presentations for your patients - a simple
presentation that you can make on an office computer
to a patient in your consultation room. PowerPoint
presentations can also be uploaded to your website
for patients to download at their leisure. If at all
possible, it would be nice to have a terminal with your
presentations available in the greeting area for patients
to look through.
If each person in the office made a list of where they
feel they could improve using the technology in your
office from the laser, computer, cameras, internet and
plan training time. Make a list of all the things you could
do that would enhance your patient services. Make a
list of things you could do to increase your business.
Last but not least what can you do in your office to
eliminate the technology headaches? Let technology
work for you.
ADEI - Vision, Expertise, Profitability.
To discuss your practice goals and learn how
we can help, call us at 1-888-239-9908.
ADEI
S H I P O W I C K
J U P P
Advanced Dental
Education Institute
Patterson Today 2010 •• 31