My Dental Channel

With all the new technology available to dental practices today, the process of choosing the right technology and implementing it into your practice can be confusing if not flat out overwhelming. This article written by Amy Morgan from the Pride Institute gives dentists a strategic step by step approach to successfully choosing and integrating new technology into your practice.

Today's technology has created amazing treatments and outcomes that dazzle patients and dentists alike. At Chicago Midwinter, Hinman, and other meetings, are you magnetized by all that is new, wanting to purchase everything? (The grapevine has it that the latest must-have equipment runs $200,000-plus.) How can you implement costly, rapidly changing innovations that enhance patient care and also guarantee a return on investment (ROI)? There are six critical steps to help you meet this challenge successfully always.

1. Develop a vision and strategy for practice advancements.

Halt! Before introducing change, you, as leader, must have a clear, compelling reason for the upgrade, otherwise your staff will feel it is just more work and chaos. It's not a piece of equipment that inspires, but the outcomes the equipment can provide.

Joan Garbo is a consultant, trainer, and public speaker who is dedicated to supporting executives, professionals and business owners in creating work environments that are nurturing, productive and prosperous to management, employees, and clients alike. In her article, "Gossip Gossip Gossip", Joan shares the damage of gossip in the practice, as well as 3 tips to help resolve this challenging issue.

Have you ever noticed how we respond to the word “gossip”? Like a magnet draws iron filings to it, we are drawn to people and situations that feed the darker side of our humanness. Just the mere mention of the word and our ears perk up! Gossip has such a strong attraction for people that every major newspaper has a “gossip column”, the National Enquirer is one of the largest selling newspaper in this country, and Jerry Springer now has one of the most popular “talk” shows.

President of The Transitions Group North America, Lisa Philp shares her expertise in this article in regard to dealing with the common issue and frustration of Hygiene downtime.

In every practice, the issue of hygiene downtime is a high priority for everyone involved. An acceptable measurable percentage for non-productive time in hygiene is 5-8%. If the hygiene program is appropriately designed, the hygiene coordinator or the person responsible for booking the hygiene schedule will no longer need to operate from a place of urgency. Instead they will have several places to go to in order to fill the empty time slot. Through the establishment of a hygiene program, you can keep the hygienist's time filled with a minimum amount of stress to all those involved.