HENRY SCHEIN || THE 2025 INTERACTIVE PLAYBOOK TO BUILDING YOUR DENTAL PRACTICE
9. TRANSFORM THROUGH TECHNOLOGY
Choosing the right technology (dental equipment) for your practice can seem overwhelming but it is manageable if you keep these principles in mind:
- Choose foundational pieces of equipment and use those as building blocks to enhance your capabilities as you grow. Foundational equipment often includes cone beam computed tomography (CBCT) units and intraoral scanners.
- Take a tiered approach to digitizing your practice, investing in one piece at a time. “It’s easier to learn one new step today and another in six months than trying to radically change your entire practice all at once,” says Moffat.
- As you shop for equipment, keep your options open and think of the future. You don’t want to invest in equipment that will limit your capabilities two years from now.
- Work closely with your team to share your vision of digital dentistry. Talk through day-to-day activities and how digital dentistry can improve upon these workflows and ask for their input. Involving your team early on in the decision-making and equipment selection process and explaining your philosophy behind the investment can help ensure they embrace your plans and use the equipment to its fullest potential.
- Take the time to kick the tires. Ask for a demonstration of the product. Talk to another doctor who’s implemented the same technology. Ask your Henry Schein equipment specialist to walk you through the unique benefits the product has, as well as how the product can grow with you over time.
- Consider your equipment when making hiring decisions. Many dental assistants, for example, already know how to perform digital impressions.
GETTING STARTED:
- Your equipment specialist can work directly with your architect and contractor to determine what infrastructure is needed to accommodate the digital dentistry you’re implementing up front, as well as what may be needed to expand these capabilities over the next five to 10 years. For example, what data drops (runs of cable inside the walls) are right for a growing practice? What hardware and software can currently integrate together, as well as with additional equipment you may wish to add in the future? Are there any office lease terms (such as restrictions on drilling into a load-bearing beam) that may impact equipment purchases?
- It’s equally important to walk your contractor and architect through your existing or proposed workflows in terms of how you plan to use the digital dentistry in your practice and how you envision these pieces of equipment enhancing or expediting processes. If you plan to have intraoral scanners, for example, do you want to show the scans to patients right in the treatment room or in a consultation space? If you’re going to be creating night guards, how do you envision the equipment enhancing outcomes?
