Digital radiography in general practice: is it time to convert?

The benefits of digital imaging in dentistry are numerous, yet many practitioners are hesitant to expand into this technology. Various strategies can be used to incorporate digital intraoral radiology into a practice. The payoff is typically improved efficiencies and better patient care.

How going digital will affect the dental office.

Background And Overview: The impact of digital imaging on dental practice depends upon the degree of planning conducted before implementation. Digital technologies have the potential to improve diagnosis; facilitate patient treatment procedures; and streamline storage, transfer and retrieval. These technologies also provide for secure backup of patients' image data, critical to re-establishing the practice should fire, flood or earthquake occur.

In practice: how going digital will affect the dental office.

Background And Overview: The impact of digital imaging on dental practice depends upon the degree of planning conducted before implementation. Digital technologies have the potential to improve diagnosis; facilitate patient treatment procedures; and streamline storage, transfer and retrieval. These technologies also provide for secure backup of patients' image data, critical to re-establishing the practice should fire, flood or earthquake occur.

Caries management: a new paradigm.

In 2001, The National Institutes of Health (NIH) published its first consensus statement on the management of dental caries in response to the Surgeon General's 2000 report, Oral Health in America: A Report of the Surgeon General. Since then the dental profession has seen the introduction of evidence-based dentistry (EBD) and the classification of risk factors for dental caries, as well as the introduction of many new tools and technologies to augment current diagnostic and treatment applications. This article reviews the literature to explore dentistry's current understanding and management of dental caries.

Putting technology in place successfully.

Background: This article discusses how to integrate clinical and administrative workstations into your dental practice from the planning phase to the implementation phase. The author discusses the costs that are associated with integrating technology, as well as the hardware components and configuration. He then discusses in greater detail the core clinical technologies and how they tie in together to facilitate building a cohesive digital patient record.

Technology integration: a journey, not a destination.

This article discusses the integration of the latest technologies into the dental practice. Given the rapid rate of obsolescence in computer hardware, clinicians need to look to practice-management software to build the foundation for incorporating all future applications into a smoothly running operation. Combined, the core components of the clinical dental record, digital radiography, intraoral and digital cameras, and cosmetic imaging create an integrated dental image-management system that is becoming a critical factor in how we communicate with our patients and with each other.