The Digital Dentist

Here are some of the more interesting products and services I saw at the CDA today:

1. Intelligent Dental Marketing. I was very impressed with this company and their products. They provide full marketing packages for dentists. Most impressive was their Treatment Pro software, which has patient education modules but also has an online component that patients can use to review treatment recommendations. Very slick.

2. I've discussed the Clik-Ray sensor holder before. I was pleased to see that they now have a #1 sensor holder. I got to demo the system myself and it seems really easy to use and efficient. Price is a fraction of the cost of a RINN kit and it works as well.

3. Uappoint showed me a beta version of their online hygiene scheduling program. This looks very cool. Patients can request appointments but the available appointments shown can be customized based on criteria that the practice sets. Once they send the request, the office gets an email and if they schedule that visit, the patient automatically gets an email confirmation that they can click on to confirm. Expect to see this in about a month or so.

4. I saw a copy of the new Advanstar magazine, Modern Hygienist, and I really liked this journal. Very nice layout and format. Hopefully, they could use some articles on a technology slant :-)

That's all for now...more news as it becomes available.

I'll be at the CDA all day Saturday. Saty tuned for my initial report of all dental technology items.

Computer Shopper Magazine has released their list of the top 50 downloads of free software. Here are a few of my favorites and "must haves":

1. Easy Uninstaller. This uninstaller is a fast, advanced, powerful, and easy-to-use replacement for Windows' slow and user-unfriendly Add/Remove control panel applet. It comes with functions such as multiple uninstallations in one go, an uninstall list backup manager, and the option to delete an uninstaller key entry.

2. JetToolBar. JetToolBar is a simple program that creates 14 default categories of shortcuts for applications and bookmarks of recommended Web sites. Position the toolbar on any edge of the screen, docked or floating. The size of buttons on the toolbar and the toolbar itself can be adjusted.

3. Trillian. Trillian offers simultaneous access to the fab-five chat clients: AOL Instant Messenger, ICQ, mIRC, MSN Messenger, and Yahoo Messenger. Import your passwords, buddy lists, and client preferences into the Trillian interface, and the program acts as a hub for all your chat traffic. This latest version serves up an overhauled interface, tabbed chatting, improved file transfers, and a new Instant Lookup feature.

4. Cryptainer. Cryptainer LE is an encryption utility that acts as a virtual drive you can place anywhere on your PC. You can then save files with its 128-bit Blowfish encryption to keep your data safe. Because the program lets you create self-decrypting executable files, you can send secure documents to anyone, even if that person doesn't have Cryptainer installed.

I came across a patient communications company recently called Elexity. I had lunch with their CEO Tony McManus where he shared some interesting insights. One of the areas that they specialize in is reactivating your dormant patients.

Here's the information he gave me about the service they offer:

"You are busy and your staff is busy. The question, are you too busy to look after your patients? Keep in mind that it is much cheaper to reactivate an existing patient than acquire a new patient.

Ask yourself: when was the last time that you ran a report on your management software and preformed an analysis of the number of patient names in your software versus the number of active patients that you see regularly? Dental offices spend time and resources trying to get new patients, which is an expensive process. But if, like many of your peers, you only see 30% of the patients in your software then you do not need to spend tens of thousands of dollars trying to get new patients (some of the new patients may even already be in your computer software, but you are not aware of this!). You need to spend more time on the patients you already have, but do not see.

These figures suggest 100% of your revenues come from 30% of the patients in your software. If you can increase the percentage to 45% of the patients in your patient database you are growing your business by 50%.

My advice: take 15 minutes to thoroughly examine your patient reports. Whatever management software you use will provide you with a report in seconds. Be prepared for figures that may bring on cardiac arrest! What has happened to the thousands of patients that have not been in your office for over a year? These patients are gold. Do yourself a favor and make a concerted effort to reconnect with these patients:

Step 1: Identify your dormant patients systematically.
Step 2: Reach out and tell your patients via telephone, letter or e-mail that you have missed them and then offer incentives to get them back in your office (a free check-up, x-ray, etc.).

These steps of identification and contact will help grow your business much more cost-effectively than trying to find new patients. You already have a relationship with patients who have not come in recently, so remind them about what you can do for them."

For more information on how Elexity can help, call them at (888) 771-6074 or 323-650-9479. Or go to their website.

As someone who grew up in a world without mice (the computer kind), I became very comfortable using the keyboard. I've always used hotkeys, which are typically a combination of two keys that can really speed up your work. For example, many people know they can hit CTRL-C to copy and CTRL-V to paste. Did you know there are about 50-60 others? Here's a great list of most of the Windows Hotkeys.

If you follow the threads on DentalTown, you'll see many long debates on the best way to mirror hard drives. Is it RAID 1? RAID 5? RAID 0+1? Do you have any clue what I'm talking about?

Well, don't be in the dark any longer. I found this excellent RAID tutorial that outlines the main types of RAID and the pros and cons of each. It's an easy read and worth the 5 minutes it takes to go through it.

You've been there before: you install a new version of a program and find that it just doesn't cut it for you. Perhaps they took out a feature you loved, perhaps the new version is buggy. But, you don't have the discs lying around to install the old version, so what do you do? There are a couple of sites for this. I've used OldApps before and it has old versions of many programs and utilities. I've also used OldVersion but the site is extremely slow to load so I don't know if it's still online.

PCStats has posted an excellent article on how computers die and what steps you can take to prevent that from happening. The number one reason for hardware failures? (Drumroll, please....) Power supply failures!

Found a nice voice-activated periodontal charting program that I hadn't heard of before, Periopal. The software looks to be pretty slick and can handle all aspects of the perio exam. It also seems to integrate with the clinical modules of most PMS programs. The software retails for about $3000 and you can go to their website to arrange a demo.

Photomed has posted images of the new addition to their dental photography systems, the Nikon D200. This looks to be a very serious camera for dentists who have more advanced needs. It's a 10.2 Megapixel camera with three different lens options and two flash options. Check it out.

If you are planning to get a Dell in the near future, there are some serious discounts to be found at PC Systems Direct, a great site to find these coupons. These are some of the biggest discounts I've ever seen. Of course, none of these are systems I normally use, but these are a good options for many folks.

If you have your computer set to Automatically Update, you may have received a security patch that is causing more damage than good. Problems run the gamut, from Windows freezes, vanished external drives, inoperable printers, and an inability to save or open files in various Microsoft Office applications. You can read the details here, as well as get instructions on a temporary fix.

While I've been a fan of external hard drives for years, my only hesitation has been the fact that if they are dropped, it could destroy the data. Well, it seems that Plextor has now come out with a line of shook-proof drives, the PX-SP line. They are surrounded by a silicon jacket bumper which supposedly will protect the drives if dropped. Pricing is a tad high and the largest capacity is only 120 GB, but these drives have promise.

This appears to be one of the first Wireless USB devices, and would be a good fit for dental offices: the iKey DW-860. It's a compact keyboard that is rugged enough for use in the operatory. No idea yet on pricing as this is very new.

Here's great tool for any offices that wants a more advanced method for detecting oral cancer. It's called the VELscope, and it uses fluorescent light that hones in on tissues that glow when abnormal cells show up. That can give dentists an edge in fighting cancers early on, before they progress too far. The device isn't on the market yet, but is expected to sell for about $5,000 when it's released

Here's a great little website: Dosize. It basically takes any images you have and resizes them for sending in an email. I know that lots of offices send email attachments to other offices, but the image files are often very large and take a long time to download. This site eliminates that problem.

I've mentioned my favorite indexing program, X1, in the past. Version 5.5 was just released and it made a huge improvement: the ability to index Tasks and Calendar in Outlook. For those of you who don't have an indexing program, this is the best program I've ever used. The software indexes, in real time, every file on my hard drive: emails, tasks, documents, pdf files, you name it. If I want to find an email I sent to someone, I just start to type a few letters of their name or some word from the email and I'll get a list of every file that contains those letters. It's an amazingly fast way to find information on your drive without searching. Highest recommendation.

I just had a nice chat with Bonnie Pugh, Product Line Manager for the Dental Division of Kodak. As many of you know, Kodak's reputation with service and support hasn't been as good as they would like. After speaking with her, I am convinced they are moving in the right direction. They are completely committed to the Softdent and Practiceworks software. As they suffer the attrition that most IT companies go through (support reps are often young), they are offering incentive for people to stay, and their attrition is certainly down. They are planning to offer online training for offices who want training but don't like the high costs of an in-office trainer. Finally, I also suggested that they assign someone to monitor and respond to the Dentaltown posts, as Townies need to know that Kodak is listening and will respond to their issues. Overall, I'm pleased with their new commitment to service and support and will be looking for great things from them over the coming months.

PC World has released their Best 101 Free Utilities. Here are the ones I think would be good to try (and, yes, I've tried almost all of them before giving you my own list):

1. OmniFormat. Want to convert that unwieldy bitmap image to a JPEG? Or that Word document to a TIF image file? How about converting that GIF file to a handsome PDF? If you can tolerate some ads, OmniFormat can do it for free.

2. Google Desktop. Harness the power of the Internet's most popular search engine on your own PC. Google Desktop indexes nearly every document on your hard drive and then includes those files in your Google searches. A sidebar displays information modules that you select, such as current news, updated items from recently visited sites, and local weather.

3. Think Free. Think you can't open Office documents without paying hundreds of dollars for software? Think again. Just visit ThinkFree Office Online and you can open, edit, and create Office documents with this easy and convenient online service, new from ThinkFree.

4. Shields Up. Think your PC is secure? Visit programming guru Steve Gibson's site to be sure. Shields Up is a convenient browser-based tool that checks for common vulnerabilities, such as open ports and hackable file-sharing services.

This is a really cool idea for people who travel a lot of just want fast information. It's called Webaroo, and it works by downloading relevant web pages onto your portable, or offline, device. It indexes key areas and allows you access web sites even when no connection exists. Very cool idea. The service was just launched today so time will tell how well it works.

While I realize this isn't dental technology per se, I know a lot of readers enjoy listening to music. I found a really excellent review of the eight most popular services for downloading music. While their winner was one I had never heard of, AllofMP3, that particular service would seem to be skirting the legal boundaries in the USA. Still a good read. You can read the full review here.

Here's a great list of the best freeware on the web, broken down by category. Something for everyone here.

If you haven't used del.icio.us, then you are missing out on a great web service. What is it? Well, it's a bit hard to pinpoint. Its main feature is an online way to store your favorite web sites, so that you can access them anywhere. However, it does a whole lot more, such as associating tag, or keywords, to sites, share your favorites with friends, and see what other people find as their favorite sites. Give it a try.

I just got word today from the good folks at Sota Optics that their brand new camera, the Claris i310D, is now ready to be shipped. I love this camera: pure USB with no more docking stations, excellent images, works with most image software, capture button on the handpiece. Retail pricing is $3500. Expect a two week or so backlog as they get ramped up to produce the units. I should have my first one next week.

While I would never recommend Linux for a dental office, it's a great operating system to use at home as it's safe and stable...far more than Windows. If you are thinking about dipping your toes in to the water, check out this Newbie Guide to get started and to see what the fuss is all about.

According to my blog statistics, a good number of visitors are using Firefox, a terrific browser. Unlike Internet Explorer which comes bloated out of the box, Firefox allows you to add "extensions" to increase its functionality without compromising speed. Too much of a good thing, though, is never good. This site shows you to how to streamline Firefox to make it zippy.

The makers of Winbackup, an award winning backup software, have released the software for free. This is an easy-to-use software that guarantees 100% accuracy of your restores. Definitely worth a download.

Here's a great little tool that helps you analyze your hard drive: JDisk Report. JDisk Report enables you to understand how much space the files and directories consume on your disk drives, and it helps you find obsolete files and folders.
The tool analyses your disk drives and collects several statistics which you can view as overview charts and details tables. Best of all, it's free to use.

I really had a great time at the Townie meeting this year. Two final products of interest:

1. Schein was showing their Evolution 4D system. While I'm not an expert on Cerec, I've certainly seen it in use a number of time, and I was very impressed with the Evolution 4D. The software was very intuitive and I loved the "rubber cusp" feature. I also liked the fact that it uses both Ethernet and Wi-Fi to connect to the milling machine.

2. I got to see the Air Techniques Visix software. It looks remarkably like Tigerview software (I mean, it's no accident; it's obviously a licensed version of Tigerview). Seems pretty easy. Also from A/T were two announcements. First, the Seal-X barrier sealer should be out in April. Secondly, although it's not official, I hear they are working on a new version of the Scan-X that will compete directly with the Optime unit. One difference is that there will be two separate feeds, so that two people can use the scanner at the same time. Stay tuned.

The best part of the meeting for me today was seeing a live, working version of Dentrix G2. Mind you, it was an Alpha version and was a bit buggy, but overall, I'm really impressed. It seems that they have really listened to their customers when designing the software. They are really only modifying three parts of the program: the chart, treatment plan presenter, and progress notes. Other areas will be addressed in future releases. This actually makes a lot of sense to me, since you'll only have to learn a few new modules at a time.

Some of the best features were that every part of the screen was divided into panes; each pane can be moved or resized to your liking. Icons and the toolbars are also completely customizable. Dentrix now has 3-D charting, and you can select multiple teeth to treatment plan. The progress notes are closer in function and features to Easy Notes Pro than past versions. The treatment plan presenter can allow you to track and maintain multiple treatment plans.

Overall, I was very pleased with what I saw. They are still saying they are going for a Spring release, but that may be tight. Most software programs have a 2-3 month Beta period, and since they haven't yet entered into Beta, I'd be surprised if the update came out before July 1.