Dental Products Report-2012-02-01

Makes your patients happy and keeps them loyal by communicating the way they prefer, with convenient text and e-mail confirmations. Keeps your schedule full by tightening recall, reducing no-shows, reactivating dormant patients and helping you fill last-minute appointments.

In a tough economy, it’s more important than ever that dentists work to meet and exceed each patient’s expectations. By performing to the best of one’s abilities at every appointment, a dentist can develop stronger relationships with existing patients, as well as gain new patients.

1. Allows flexible dosing through a convenient automix syringe designed and sized for easy handling so the right amount can be dispensed each time with a consistent paste-paste ratio.

DPR is launching a new eNewsletter: Technique Geek. Each week, we'll feature a video technique of a product in use, offering step-by-step examples of clinical success. Subscribe here to make sure you receive them all.

Crown and bridge procedures are often complex, labor intensive and detail oriented endeavors incorporating a number of different dental materials for success from start to finish. Clinician’s Choice has two stand-out products that offer the possibility of easing the dentist’s burden in managing two elements of crown and bridge: fabrication of the provisional and cementation of the provisional.

As part of DPR's category round-up for digital sensors (see introduction here), we did "snapshot" interviews with dentists using three of the market leading sensors to find out what they chose and why.

For those of us who have entered lightly into the dental technological digital era, we may only have one or two components in our offices. In our office, aside from practice management software, caries and oral cancer detectors, we have Air Techniques’ indispensable Polaris intraoral camera. Why indispensable?

Dr. Philip Kroll was using another DUX product,  the reversible hydrocolloid, when the company suggested he give ShortCut GingiBRAID a try a little more than a year ago. While quite satisfied with their existing retraction cord product, he and his staff at the California general practice were glad they made the switch.

It is 1962 and Dr. Jones has an air compressor installed with air lines to all the treatment rooms running to units with highspeed air turbine handpieces, yet he continues to use the old belt driven dental drill because he just doesn’t trust the new system. That seems silly today, but it is the same situation many dentists find themselves in 50 years later with regards to paperless dental records.

Sterilization in general, and dental unit waterlines (DUWL) in particular, was big news about a dozen years ago. And it was about that time that Dr. Luke Iwata, a general practitioner who also was affiliated with Loma Linda University School of Dentistry at the time, shared his thoughts with a chemical engineer.

I have always been drawn to new technology. When analyzing the WaveOne file, it is clear that a lot of science went into its development. The concept and design behind the file system is built around a conservative shaping approach. The file system allows me to establish deep shape in the apical third of the root canal system while maintaining a conservative preparation in the middle and coronal third.

Align Technology has delivered significant technology advances, represented by the Invisalign clear aligner products. With these solutions, my patients and practice have gained tremendous benefits, both in terms of clinical application and profitability. However until recently, achieving highly accurate impressions for optimizing aligner benefits has been challenging.

Like a lot of patients, Xiaomi Tong wanted to improve her smile. She had tried some whitening systems, but a lack of results still left her self-conscious when it came to smiling or laughing. All that changed when she became a patient at Dr. Gary Nelson’s Leesburg, Va. practice and was introduced to Opalescence PF from Ultradent Products.

The purpose Year after year, survey after survey, DPR’s readers affirm that when it comes to choosing products for their practices, colleague recommendations are vital. Here, we provide space for dental professionals-like you and your team-to reflect on the products they see making a difference.

Dr. Steve Carstensen owns and leads a successful practice in Bellevue, Wash. He has been a Sesame Member since 2010 and currently uses Sesame 24-7™, an integrated suite of services developed exclusively for dental practices, which include his website, mobile site, appointment reminders, online patient portal and search marketing strategies.

  In the February 2012 issue of Dental Products Report, we featured Michael Augins in our 10 Questions profile. Augins had more information and comments than we could fit in print, so here we offer up the full interview.  1. Sirona has the distinction of introducing CAD/CAM to dentistry more than 25 years ago. How did that come about, and what has been its impact on dentistry?

For all patients with malpositioned teeth, comprehensive orthodontics is the first recommendation to conservatively correct and enhance the appearance of their smile. Unfortunately, the large majority of adults aren’t willing to undergo the lengthy treatment that’s usually involved.

Featuring advanced design and engineering, the Midwest Stylus ATC air-driven handpiece is powerful and efficient.

I remember when Andrew Allison (our SoproLIFE rep) came to my office for an intraoral camera demonstration in the fall of 2009. He said, “Dr.