A few weeks ago, I wrote a post titled “Looking into How General Dental Practices Communicate with Specialist Offices”. Over the past month or so I have collaborated over several cases utilizing a tool called Basecamp. Basecamp is a project management piece software that is hosted completely online. Therefore, there is no software to download, no need to worry whether there are both Macs and PC’s in the group and the data is secure because it’s stored in either Rackspace or Amazon’s Cloud(More on the cloud another day, but basically the data isn’t stuck on one server that can fail, it’s hosted over thousands of computers comprising the Cloud.)  So how does it work?

I have created a Project in my Basecamp account for the periodontists office, I can then determine who has access to that project. So I set it up for the the two doctors and a staff member(front office) from each office.

I see a patient that is a potential referral, so I go into Basecamp and create a message for the Periodontist, I can add pertinent health info and current findings and potential treatment plans. I can also attach photos, xrays and perio charting in PDF format. When I post the message I can determine who has access to the note and who should get email notification that its there, so I click on the periodontists name. Now that it’s uploaded, the software sends the periodontist a note letting him know it’s there for his review. He can review it on his terms and make necessary comments and the two doctors can collaborate on the best course of action. When that action is ready to be put in place we can click on the office coordinator’s from each office and they can go into Basecamp and review the discussion between docs and get the patient scheduled.

So far it has worked really well, it will be interesting to see how it progresses, we have two patients in treatment, and this has been a great help moving the treatment along. Would anyone like to see an video demonstration of how this works? If so, let me know in the Comments below…

Full disclosure, I don’t receive anything from Basecamp or 37Signals.com unless you decide to sign up with the affiliate link that will provide me a small referral fee for their service. You can find that link at the top right of any page on this site, just click the Basecamp logo.

Technology allows people to do amazing things. In the dental world it’s almost impossible to keep up with every piece of technology that comes out and actually use it. Are we more efficient because of the technology? Are we taking good advantage of this technology? Is the technology enabling us to provide better service?

I’m a subscriber of the SmileReminder service. It’s a service that handles patient reminders via email and text message. Not only does it handle appointment reminders, but it can also handle birthdays, whenever a patient has a birthday, a note is sent from our office wishing them a happy birthday. It all works in the background, so a few weeks ago a gentleman comes in for an office visit and before we get started, he made a point to thank me for the wonderful birthday greeting from our office via text message, he was thrilled, it was the only birthday greeting he received. I felt grateful that we were able to bring him joy on his birthday, but it also occurred to me that a text message is all we sent?

I can’t blame SmileReminders, in the dashboard of their software they list the upcoming birthdays for the next week, it would be very easy to pick out specific patients that might need an actual card or gift the decision is for each office. The reality is, technology only gets you so far. For this gentleman, the technology was enough, but how cool would it have been to send him an actual card? Technology can do amazing things, but people effectively using technology can do even better things.

Here’s a photo of the upper rail yard, this will become a passenger terminal:

This is the other side of the upper level with the Turntable that will eventually lead to a house to store engines that aren’t in use:

Here are a couple of engines on the tracks:

Twitter is a great way to communicate, you can follow or un-follow anyone you wish. Short, simple exchanges that build community. Which means you can find topics that you are interested in and follow those that discuss those topics. If you have a topic you love, start writing tweets about your topic and find others that are interested in your topic. I’ve started a list below of Reasons Dentists Should “Actually” Twitter, Not Just Join It. Interested to see this list grow please use the comments below to add to the list.

1. It’s a great way to promote dental health.
2. If you can’t say it in 140 characters work on it till you can, remove the fluff that nobody understands anyway.
3. Its a fun way to engage others in your community and expand your community.
4. Discover other topics of interest, golf, wine, travel,politics, religion, non-profit work, etc.
5. It’s a great way to point users to specific content on your website

A major challenge our office and every dental office has is collaborating with specialist offices. For many years x-rays and a referral slip were sent to the specialists office along with the patient. Now x-rays are digital files, most of the patient data is digital data, so the idea of sending x-rays and referral slips via postal mail is really backward thinking. With the advent of the internet collaboration of all types of media is viable. X-rays, Letters and Photos can be transferred from office to office with ease. If it’s so easy, why are we still getting snail mail letters via postal mail along with stacks of referral slips.

It’s easy in theory, but not in practice because the most common electronic tool used today is email.

Who is responsible for checking the email? Does the referring office even have email? Often the doctors communicate via email but the offices don’t. What happens when “the” Email computer goes down. How do you handle spam? Who checks the email?
Who sends the email? How do you keep track of specific patient data? Is it secure?

Email is a poor project management system. Email is great for one on one communication, but lousy for groups of people to work together.

I’m thinking an application like Basecamp from 37signals, might be something worth looking into. A specialist office can create a “camp” for each of their referring doctors offices and provide access to whomever they choose from that office, the doctor, a treatment coordinator, a member of the front office staff etc. Now whenever that doctor is referring a new patient over the office staff can upload necessary x-rays, health histories, treatment plans, whatever. This area is secure between the two doctors offices. When the specialists sees the patient and create their report, instead of faxing or emailing that report is uploaded to the “camp” and an email or RSS notification is sent to the referring doctor’s office to go look in the “camp” for the info. I’d be interested in hearing some comments of whether or not this is viable or not in your practice.

Just found that Planet DDS Dental Software at http://www.planetdds.com/ has created a cool little iPhone app. I use Eaglesoft from Patterson Dental. Now when is Eaglesoft going to come out with an iPhone app? The phone has been out almost 3 years. We are waiting. I don’t want to sync my phone with iTunes on a PC, so never mind unless Eaglesoft figures out how to sync wirelessly from my server on the fly. Do that and you will make everyone happy.

With the advent of Twitter, Facebook, FriendFeed, MySpace, YouTube and the many others, the web landscape has changed. Your website or blog can now get traffic from these sources as well as the search engines. Social media is a great way to connect with others, they may be current customers, or potential customers, or customers that you have already lost. It’s rare that Social Media is successful when outsourced or just implemented. A Facebook fan page with not content and no fans is well just a page lost in space. A Twitter account with no followers, no updates and following no one is a waste of space on a server. Social Media requires people to be sociable, which means its a two way street.
Should a dentist join the Social Media world and lead his/her practice into this world? Are you adding to the discussion? Learning from others? Can a dentist expect the staff to carry the Social Media torch? Will the staff get involved if the boss is Twittering? Will the office Facebook page get updated if the boss isn’t checking it out too? Do patients want to engage their dentists via Twitter or Facebook?

I’ve been thinking about technology lately, primarily because of the many purchases I have made because of the opportunities the technology was supposed to provide. Technology is only useful when it helps to actually create great content. It won’t create the content. If adding technology makes content creation easier and faster, great! A High Speed Handpiece might make the job easier, but won’t turn a bad prep into a good prep. PowerPoint doesn’t make presentations, people do. Technology is great and helpful, but can also be a lead weight towards productivity especially when there is debt involved.

How many scraps are you throwing away each day? Do you know what scraps matter and what scraps are true waste?

What are your scraps that matter?

Are you aware of how much you are throwing away?

Could the scraps be valuable to your bottom line?

Start tracking the scraps today.