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June 2009 | Dental Products Report  Turn it around Times may be tough, but now's the time to With all the negative talk about the economy the last year or so, this can not possibly be a good time to add technology to your practice, right? Wrong. Additionally, many of our readers indicate they plan to add or upgrade many of the technologies in their practices. Seven in 10 GPs have computers in the operatory, which in turn allows the large majority of them to use this technology in the operatory for digital x-ray, scheduling, patient education, intraoral video cameras and treatment planning.
It’s clear the economy isn’t keeping dentists from getting on board, especially in growing areas such as CAD/CAM (along with the use of digital impressions), cone beam and digital x-ray. “You don’t know what patients are not telling you. Sometimes they’re leaving a dentist who didn’t keep up with technology,” said Dr. Joyce Warwick, a member of DPR’s Clinical 360 Technology Team. “They want to know their dentist is keeping up with the advances. If they don’t feel you’re keeping up with technology they might think you’re not keeping up with dentistry.” Dr. Warwick, who is quite involved with implants, lists digital x-ray and Cone Beam Volumetric Tomography (CBVT) as two key additions that have given her practice a lift. For more on the many benefits of CBVT, see Dr. John Flucke’s “The big picture”, as well as Dr. Terry Myers’ thoughts on cone beam in this article. Dr. Myers is one of 11 dentists—each representing a different technology category—who shares their experiences with us to help you learn what some users like best about these key technologies and their uses in practice. CONTINUED ON NEXT PAGE
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Speaking of digital x-ray, the latest survey indicates 47% of our readers have intraoral sensor-based digital x-ray in their practices and an additional 17% plan to add or upgrade the technology into their practices. The survey also reports healthy numbers in terms of doctors who plan to add/upgrade the following to their practices: computerized shade matching device (14%), computer hardware for the treatment room (14%), caries detection device (10%), soft-tissue laser (9%) and dual-wave laser (8%). It’s also interesting to note that the relatively new digital impression taking devices are currently owned by 7% of survey respondents, yet 10% plan to add one. 
