In the dental industry, most end users try to avoid the bleeding edge. Bleeding edge refers to a product or service that is new, experimental, generally untested and carries a high degree of uncertainty. Bleeding edge is mainly defined as newer, more extreme, and riskier than technologies on the cutting or leading edge. In general dentists don’t want to be the first to use anything new for fear of technology that might be glitchy, or not fully realized. It is much safer to let someone more adventurous, or tech savvy work out the bugs before you get the latest greatest piece of hardware, or software. Sometimes outside influences force your hand and separate the quick and the dead. Changes in government regulation, technological developments like Y2K, or pandemics like Covid-19, can quickly shift the very ground beneath us and leave no good alternative to charging headfirst, armed with the newest technology.

Offices that for years have insisted they will never go digital, all of a sudden need to get rid of their paper charts yesterday. I heard of one office that is putting charts in Tupperware containers for a day following use, as a means of infection control. If I ran that office my next phone call would be to the sales team at Tracker to get setup with the clinical application and schedule training. Another office I trained today, told me how they were calling each patient to do a Covid-19 Screening on the phone. I trained them on eForms, which can send the patient the forms automatically to their phone, or email along with a reminder of their appointment. Tracker even has a report which will show you any patients who have not filled out their screening. We also have a Virtual Waiting Room which will avoid patients congregating at your door, or at your reception desk. https://gotracker.com/learn-about-trackers-covid-19-screening-and-distancing-tools/

My biggest fear for my clients is that they will treat the post Covid-19 reopening like business as usual. They will not use this as an opportunity to go paperless, or introduce things like online forms for Covid screening, or digital charting to avoid having paper charts, which are an infection control nightmare. The good news is, most of the technology you need is already battle tested and can be implemented quite easily. The bad news is there is no excuse not to go completely digital ASAP! Contact our sales team to upgrade to Version 11, go paperless, and implement online, booking, confirmations and forms. The best thing about these features is they are already battle tested. They have been used and improved, so what are you waiting for?