In many advances over the past few years, it has been noted that the technology has been the driving force in this process. This is as true in other fields as it has been in dentistry. In the early 1990’s, intraoral cameras were all the rage. In the lat 90’s, it was digital cameras. And, at present, no other topic seems to generate greater interest that digital radiography.

Most dentists who went through dental school in the 1980s and 1990s were reminded about the “golden age” of dentistry, which occurred back in the 1960s and 1970s. While there is no doubt that this era was a time of prosperity for dental practices, the modern dental practice has evolved significantly from that time. While many dentists concentrated on restorative dentistry and cosmetics were starting to become a reality, dentists today have developed many other skills

In the last column of The Digital Dentist, we took a brief overview of the options available with data redundancy and backup. One of the most common requests I get from dentists is help them develop a protocol for backing up their data, so I would like to discuss this in greater detail. There are a few important concepts that need to be addressed first

Welcome to The Digital Dentist, a new monthly feature of Dental Economics. Of all the components of a dental practice, technology seems to be changing the most rapidly. New practice management software, imaging software, digital radiography, cameras, and a host of other advances have altered the landscape for dental offices.

As a technology consultant, I work with many dentists who have a variety of questions regarding the addition of technology to their dental practices. Many of the questions are related to topics that I have previously written about in New Dentist magazine: an overview of how to decide which technologies to purchase, how to choose dental software, and digital radiography.

If you talk to a number of older dentists, they will speak about the 1960’s and 1970’s as the “Golden Age of Dentistry”. It was a time of great discovery, formation of new specialties, new materials and techniques, and enough demand to keep everyone busy. If this truly was the ”Golden Age”, then dentistry has been experiencing a Renaissance since the mid 1990s. The phenomenon that has been driving this era is technology. The advent of dental practice management software, intra-oral cameras ...

For the new dentist in 2001, the practice options have increased dramatically in the past few years. It wasn’t too long ago that the economy was down and banks were unwilling to finance new practitioners. Most senior dental students were left with few choices other than to associate with an established dentist or dental group. Of course, on the positive side, the new dentist didn’t need to worry about the running of the practice and the business side of the practice.