DATA MANAGEMENT SOFTWARE

Today, more and more of dentistry is involved with data management.  The relevance of this is that more data is being generated, and managed, than at any other time.  As treatments become more complex, we need better systems in order to keep on top of the data.  If you ever wonder how we can keep our clinic running so efficiently, its due to the data management systems as well as the knowledge and skill of our team members.  Here are some of the systems we are currently using:

Practice Management Software:   LiveDDM (Ontario, Canada).  This software is used for the overall running of our clinic.  Without it, we simply could not function.  Here are some of the highlights of our system.

• Keeps track of all your appointments with regard to procedures, time and duration of appointments.  We now automatically generate the appointment time and date so that you leave with an error-free appointment card.

• Used for all of our intra-office communications.  We constantly memo each other (as well as ourselves) so that we have a digital 'sticky' that remains until the task is done.  We can even tell it when to remind us in the future.  This way it becomes much harder to forget to do tasks.

• Keeps track of all progress notes that we enter into the computer.  All important information or comments that are relevant to your file are filed in your progress notes.  This might be anything from a phone consultation with a specialist that you are seeing, prescription phoned into a pharmacist to details of a conversation with you.

• Care calls are all monitored and recorded through our system.  After your treatments, we will call you to see how you are doing.  This care call is entered into the system and, if necessary, your dentist is alerted.

• All documentation with relevant health care specialists (medical and dental) as well as any other letters relevant to your file are generated and stored within this system.

•  Predeterminations and all general ledger entries are managed and stored within this system.

This system is rapidly expanding and will soon come to the point where all the clinical data will be digital and managed by this system.  This data is backed up daily onto a mirrored hard drive, a removable hard drive, shunted to other computers within the office and also stored on the dentist's laptop.  There are always four backups present at any time, two of which remain off-site.  In the event that you have an emergency and call one of the dentists at home, this data, as well as all imaging data, can be accessed from a remote site using the necessary firewalls and encryption.

Image Management Software:  VixWin (Gendex, USA).  This software system is used to manage all of our digital radiographs (x-ray pictures) as well as digital photographs.  In every operatory, as well as all other office computers, we can access your images.  Also, the dentists can access (with encryption) your file from their home.

As with all computer applications, all  the data is backed up for security.  In the event that you request us to send information to your insurance plan, the original file remains in our office and a digital duplicate is sent on your behalf.  As with all other organizations, we also use a wide array of windows-based systems for use in our day to day operations.

Our data management systems are rapidly expanding and you will see more convenience of communication with us in the future.  If you have a private email account, please consider letting us have it.  In the event that your dentist has something to communicate to you, he may contact you directly via email.  In the past, if the dentist found some relevant information on a radiograph or had a consultation with your specialist or physician for example, he would make a memo, which the administrative member at the reception would relay to you and then relay back to the dentist.  Its far simpler to directly send this information to you.  All we ask is that you are comfortable with whoever is reading the email, with regard to confidentiality.

Its worth noting that every appointment generates a certain degree of 'paperwork'.  We may be working on your case even when you are not there.  Whenever you come for your appointments, your dentist will have already reviewed all your data, radiographs and photographs in order to be mentally prepared for your session.