Maximize Technology for Growth

New technologies are revolutionizing countless industries, and dental is no different. From patient care to practice operations, emerging innovations, including call center software, integrations, clinical and front-office AI, and cloud-based Practice Management Systems, are reshaping the industry. These advancements hold the potential to enhance efficiency, elevate patient care quality, and streamline administrative tasks. As we explore this transformative tech-driven era, you'll gain insights into how these innovations are redefining the future of dentistry.

With technological advancements in dental organizations do you foresee for 2024, and how do you expect these innovations to impact patient care

Since I work in dental software implementations, I have the opportunity to see what DSOs are actually doing, not just talking about. I observe that as groups refocus on same-store growth, they’re looking for ways to drive revenue and increase efficiency. Based on my experiences, here are the technologies that I think will be most popular in 2024:

Call center software: By recording patient calls, call center software provides data analysis and recommendations to drive an increased volume of scheduled appointments for new and existing patients. Vendors are using AI to speed call analysis and reduce cost and DSOs are discovering massive opportunities to drive revenue.

For example, a 20+ location DSO recently implemented a call center software and was pleased to discover 2000 new patient calls coming in for the prior month. However, they were not pleased to find only a 50% scheduling success rate. Now that this group knows their numbers, they are focusing efforts to improve across the organization. It’s easy to see the impact on practice operations can be measured by increased new patient production, and the impact on patient care will reflect as improved access to care.

Integration: DSOs have been asking for integration, and I’m starting to see the major PMS systems are now allowing it with outside tech vendors through their APIs. This comes with added costs, but it maintains security and speed and allows the DSO to select the products that best fit their budget and needs. In 2024, I think we will have real world examples of integration (I’m waiting on one vendor right now to provide a customer name to prove their integration exists) and this will lead to further innovation and improved efficiencies for our dental teams. The impact on our practice operations will be time saved by our teams when we can choose products based on their functionality rather than their ownership. From a patient care perspective, consumers are used to high tech in many areas of our lives, but we put up with paper forms, lack of visibility, and terrible patient experiences generally throughout healthcare. I’m hopeful that integration will allow more best in class products to come to dentistry - and the resulting experience will be so positive that DSOs will want these tech solutions for their patients.

Clinical & Front Office AI: Clinical AI for caries detection and bone loss is already being talked about as likely the standard of care in the future, and the white papers I’ve read are impressive on the revenue this drives thanks to improved diagnosis. Yet, there is even more excitement about how front office AI can have an even larger impact in dentistry by driving efficiency in administrative tasks. Since the staffing challenge isn’t going away, I see this as one of the most influential tech advancements headed our way. Considering impact on operations, for clinical AI to succeed it takes a change in workflow inside the operatory, and for front office AI I think we will see clearer recommendations on what task to tackle next as the AI has analyzed the highest priority work. This likely will make it easier for new hires to be effective - and improve patient care in the process. 

Standardization to cloud-based PMS: Not only is the economy driving a strategy change from acquisitions to same-store growth but dental PE firms are now far more experienced. They expect DSOs to have trusted KPIs and protocols in place to implement their model to achieve financial targets.

DSOs are quickly moving to select one or two cloud-based PMS systems and converting all locations. This is a far cry from the days of aggregation when doctors were told ‘we won’t change a thing’. Now, DSOs realize that if they want to actually drive improved measurable results, they must reduce variation. Realistically, this has a massive impact on practice operations as changing a practice management system disrupts every part of the organization.

And yet, once completed the impact on practice operations includes:

• Consistent, trustworthy, immediately accessible
• KPIs Mountains of time savings at the management and office levels
• Increased velocity of implementing initiatives that make a difference
• PE and lender willingness to partner.

For patient care, this standardization allows for consistent quality, for example with billing as there is one SOP that can be trained and implemented across all locations, not varying based on the PMS.

Can you offer advice on how dental practices can effectively adopt and leverage new technologies, balancing the benefits with the costs and learning curves?

This is exactly why I started my own independent software adoption consulting company. Here are a few tips:

Assessment: Start with an assessment of current state workflows and KPIs. What’s going well? What problems are you observing? What pain points do you see? What KPIs are not meeting industry benchmarks? Start with identifying the opportunity and that drives the tech solution selection. Who can do this for you?

Success Metrics: Understand the tech solution features/functionality and how it could drive measurable outcomes. This could mean looking at new tech or optimizing existing tech. Most DSOs are not fully utilizing the top value features in their PMS that they are already paying for today. Document how you will know this tech solution is a success. Who will define these metrics for the technology?

Project Management: It’s easy to get excited about new technology, but takes significant investment to achieve successful adoption. Consider your existing team and the training involved and what resources you have to implement effectively. Who will lead the project?

Change Management: As Paul talked about in more depth previously in this ebook, successful adoption of new tech means that each individual must change their workflow. To gain buy-in from the team, leadership needs to communicate why this change is happening and how it will benefit each role. Who will create and deliver this messaging to the team?

Software Setup and Guidance: DSOs are unique, so off-the-shelf set up instructions need to be customized to fit your specific model. Consider the outcomes you’re trying to achieve and match the user rights to protect the integrity of the data. Who will guide the decision-making for software set up?

SOP Creation: Once decisions are made and workflows established, document SOPs to facilitate the rollout across multiple locations and support future new hires. These will also help newly acquired practices transition to the technology. 

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