Do you have positive influencers in your practice? We continue from last week by considering the strategic type of decision making when implementing change into your practice. Decision Style – Core Team decision making: The leader trusts and depends on a select group of members of the practice (with representation from each department) who are … Read more
What follows are excerpts from popular article in a leading international newspaper called the Guardian. This article shows how and why your older patients are now more informed about their oral health, and why they say “overall health” is their primary reason they sit in your waiting room. “In the past decade, there has been … Read more
Essentially, we don’t know which hygiene procedure should be done first, nor for that matter, whether flossing has any preventive effect on dental decay. Read this quick review by the New York Times about the limited evidence to support flossing. So why do we recommend it, and even gently nag our patients about flossing? There … Read more
Move great ideas forward….. Ever have a great idea bubbling in your brain that you share with one or two colleagues throughout the day? An idea to minimize tasks, bring new patients to your practice or how to save on expenses? Sharing your idea with one or two people usually means that’s as far as … Read more
What are the top 10 tips? Tip #1: Act as a role model and inspire employees to identify what they are passionate about at work. Then provide them with some projects in their area of passion or interest. A happy employee is a motivated employee! Tip #2: Clearly define the organization’s vision, mission and strategy … Read more
With over a billion active monthly users, Facebook continues to be the social media behemoth that is hard to ignore. Small businesses and professionals can leverage the power of Facebook to their marketing advantage. Many people use Facebook Graphic Search to get more information out about relevant products or services they may be looking for. … Read more
Green Shield Canada, our fourth largest administrator of dental claims, has just published the list of the most commonly prescribed medications for Canadians between ages 50 and 70. These are listed below in terms of number of prescriptions. Note that 4 are for blood pressure and the most common drug is for mood disorders. Combining … Read more
One of the most popular articles in dentistry today is written by a pediatric dental specialist at the University of Washington. The article has a long, complicated title but upon reading it, I thought it should have been called “Dentistry 2.0″. Here are some excerpts which point to the new thinking in Dentistry 2.0: Historically, … Read more
This (shocking) statistic was recently released by the US CDC. How does this level of under-treatment compare to untreated diabetes or hypertension, 2 other prevalent chronic conditions in America? A study published in 2011 found that 2.4% of American diabetics were untreated. A study published in Hypertension in 1995 reported that about 30% of American … Read more
A new report on early childhood caries in the UK shows how serious this disease really is: •Tooth extraction, mainly under General Anaesthesia (GA), is the main reason for hospital admissions of 5–9 year old children in the UK •Repeat treatments are frequent (20%-25% of cases). So, the report interviewed 18 family dentists in the … Read more
Are we beginning to see a change in how dentistry is pitching itself to the community? Perhaps, if this ad in a local newspaper is indicative. The ad says a lot and very little. “Complete health dentistry” is a new brand, one which responds to the overriding preferences of this aging and largely uninsured community … Read more
Attached are 2 photos of our recent annual trip in January 2015 to Quesada, Guatemala. This is part of an official Canadian charity (12+ yrs going) called Health Outreach (founded by Dr. Tim Lee, Mississauga), where the volunteers (dentists and support personnel), provide free dental work to needy children. In our 6 days of work, … Read more
You probably have an established online marketing strategy for your dental practice already, including social networking via Facebook, Twitter or other social media. At least a few of your social media members may be commenting, sharing, retweeting or liking some of your social content. However, if you are not responding back to them or acknowledging … Read more
Social media is a good way of feeling the pulse of the community. Facebook can tell me, for example, how many women over 40 in Canada read Prevention Magazine or Women’s Health Magazine, and who also mention “dentist” or “hygienist” in their social media conversations. (That number is about 1.7 million!) There is a new … Read more
Dentists and Hygienists Explore the Company’s Global Research & Technology Center While Learning Directly from Colgate® Experts New York, NY – Colgate®’s “Destination Innovation” Discovery Bus tours recently provided over 100 dentists and hygienists the opportunity to visit the company’s Global Research & Technology Center in Piscataway, New Jersey, during the 2014 Greater New York … Read more
In a recent meeting with some dental benefit brokers and one insurance company, this thorny question came up: Can Canadian insurers and benefit consultants switch to making money from dental health rather than from making money from dental disease? In our meeting, the insurance company representative feared a world where patients weren’t claiming as much … Read more
Green Shield Canada announced recently that it was bringing the concept of wellness to Canada. According to this insurer’s announcement: “The company hopes to redefine the concept of wellness by utilizing analytics to target employee populations diagnosed with chronic disease and, even more proactive, reach out to those plan members at the highest risk of … Read more
This is the most common comment I get on social media, and it is the focus of a new report on improving the affordability of care to large/growing segments of Canadian society. This report argued rather weakly that more public funds were needed to enable more (uninsured) folks to visit the dentist. I don’t think … Read more
A new Swedish study appearing in the Journal of Cancer reports that missing teeth are a significant predictor of cancer. For 24 years, the study followed periodontally-healthy adults who were between ages 30 and 40 at baseline. Using regression statistical techniques, the study evaluated what were significant predictors of cancer over this period. Two factors … Read more