Shahin's Corner - The Podcast That Bites
Shahin's Corner - The Podcast That Bites
Shahin's Corner with Special Guest David Hanning - Navigating the Future of Dental Technology and Embracing Digital Innovations
Let's embark on a journey into the future of dentistry as we sit down with David Hanning, the tech-innovator at the helm of DentalTI and FTG. David brings a wealth of knowledge and experience to the table, providing insights into the transformative potential of digital workflows, from scanners to 3D printers. He shares his venture from wired sensor technology to wireless protocols, discussing the hurdles he had to surmount and how it contributed to revolutionizing dental technology. Listen in as David talks about FTG DC Air, the latest generation of integral imaging, set to redefine the dental industry landscape.
Within the digital realm, not everything is binary, and David stresses the importance of the human element - staff training. Optimizing imaging technology is crucial, and so is having a well-trained team who can exercise proficiency when capturing images. With David, we traverse through the labyrinth of exposure settings and the essence of shooting for quality. He takes us back to the days of the inter-roll camera and presents a compelling case for the judicious use of technology in today's digital imaging.
IT support in the dental industry makes for a gripping conversation as David shares the trials and triumphs of finding quality IT professionals. He underscores the importance of investing in robust processors and the practice of refreshing computers every five years. As he navigates the cost implications of maintaining computer networks in dental offices, David offers sage advice on what to look for when choosing an IT company. His words reverberate with the significance of experience and strategic planning for updates, backups, and protection. As we wrap up our enlightening chat, we find ourselves grateful to David for his unique insights and his significant contribution to shaping the future of dental technology.
Hi, my name is David Hanning. I'm the owner of DentalTI and a founder of FTG Imaging, looking forward to Shaheen's Corner and talking to him about the latest and greatest in dental technology, we're going to be showcasing the FTG DC Air. The latest generation of integral imaging is both direct conversion and wireless, and it's better than anything out there, and that's what we're going to be talking about on Shaheen's Corner.
Speaker 2:Let's get moving forward to it. All right, that was awesome. Thank you so much for joining me for another episode of Shaheen's Corner podcast. I have a special guest today David Hanning, founder and CEO of DentalTI and FTG. I want him to tell me how far behind I am in technology today compared to where everybody else is, and so I'm excited to have him, david, how are you doing, buddy?
Speaker 1:Doing well. Thank you very much, Dr Safarian. It's great to be on your podcast.
Speaker 2:Yeah, thanks. Look, there's so much talk about technology, from scanners to printers, to intro oral camera, to CBCTs and the different types. To be honest, it can be a whole residency in itself. Technology, and right now 3D printers, are a really big deal and a lot of dental practices are jumping on board. I wanted to first learn a little bit more about you, david. If you don't mind sharing a little background of how you got to where you are today, I would appreciate that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, absolutely. I graduated from Ball State University with a degree in economics in 1990 and I got out of college and I didn't really know what I wanted to do, so I did different jobs. I was a manager at a paint store and moonlighting, actually painting. When I was painting my sister's boyfriend's kitchen one night late at night and he had an intro oral camera sitting on his kitchen table and this was back in the early 90s. I asked him. I said, tony, what's that? He said well, it's an intro oral camera. I said, what's it doing? He said well, sit down and check it out. So I played around with it, looked at my teeth. I was fascinated. I'd never seen my teeth like that before.
Speaker 1:Tony, who later, by the way, became my brother-in-law, said well, I know you don't like your job at the paint store. I can see you're a hard worker. What do you think about getting in to maybe trying this, trying your hand at sales with the intro oral camera? I said, well, that technology looks really neat. And you're right, I'm not enjoying life at the paint store, so let me give that a shot. So he had a seminar up in Michigan and he gave me 20 leads and I drove up to Michigan and spent a week up there, went around and demoed at least half of those leads and I think I sold five or six intro oral cameras and I felt like I could do that. I was hooked. Tony was happy, of course, as well, and that's sort of how I got into it. And from there I did very well in sales, which when you do well in sales they typically stick in sales management which so then they made me a sales manager.
Speaker 1:Insight imaging who I was working with got purchased by New Image and from there I was a regional manager with New Image. I got hired at ADT to be a national sales manager. They did air abrasion and lasers. I worked with chic technologies. After that I worked with computer age dentists in the late 90s and by the time computer age was purchased I thought you know, I've got enough relationship in the industry. I really want to sort of shoot out and try to do this on my own. And so in 1999, I became a reseller for Digital Doc and did that independently.
Speaker 1:And then in 2003, I started dental TI, decided to hire some technicians and really started approaching more digital x-ray, comb beam, 2d, et cetera and it sort of grew from there, I do have a family. In fact, I met my wife, donna, who's amazing. She's worked with me my entire career. One of my first demos back in 1992 at a dental office, she was a dental assistant there. And then I have three children 19, 22, and 16, a 16-year-old daughter and my two oldest are my sons, and my oldest son actually works with us at dental TI. So that's exciting.
Speaker 1:But basically, from there in growing dental TI in 2016, I met a physicist by the name of Konstantino Spardiotis and he's one of the world's foremost experts on direct conversion technology and imaging. And he told me. He said, dave, you know, I know you guys have sold a lot of sensors. You've done consulting for different sensor companies and I'd like to have you consult with me about bringing the direct conversion wired sensor to the US because it will have the best image quality of any sensor out there. And I said well, konstantino, that's great that it's going to have the best image quality, but it's really not enough to set it apart. I said the biggest downside of any sensor today is the water, and most of them terminate in USB and USB is only rated at 1,500 connects and disconnects. So there's all sorts of problems with wired sensors and I said, if we can take the wire off, make it much more comfortable, not have that connection and give it the best image quality, then I think we'll have a home run that project. So FTG I was one of the founders of that company and 2017, we started that project and it took us five years, over $6 million of investment, over 40 engineers working on it, and in July last year we got our FDA for that product. So that's sort of.
Speaker 1:And then today, with dental TI, where we sell scanners, we sell printers, we're looking at more of that 3D workflow, cbct, of course, everything related to what you call the digital workflow and our philosophy has always been simplifying technology. My personal experience is in training many offices, developing workflows, creating shortcuts and software. So you've got one click instead of three, for example. Is it everyone today really wants one, two, three? We really don't have time for one through 10. People want simplicity. So our whole philosophy at dental TI is to make technology very usable in a simple fashion. But I know that that was a lot of words, but that's sort of how I got to where I am today.
Speaker 2:That's great and that investment obviously is no joke. I can understand and appreciate the process of accomplishing something that hopefully will change the profession. We talked a little bit before and I said don't judge me with the technology that's behind me, but but you know, I don't think I can tell you for a fact that I'm not up to twenty twenty two standards and I don't know how you can keep up. It seems like every six months something changes and there's an upgrade in a system or software. But it also doesn't mean that you just sit on the sidelines and watch technology pass you by, because what ends up happening is your practice can become obsolete and it can be a niche differentiator between the dentist down the street.
Speaker 2:What are some basic, david, if I was to, you know, doctors right now are not paperless, for example, and you talked about direct conversion. I'm interested in getting more into that. There's still a lot of wires in the dental practice, right, yeah, and, and it's unfortunate, but still a lot of wires. But what are, if there are some, you know nuggets that you can share with the audience? As far as what are three or four areas that are crucial for a dental practice to be up on? Technology and the importance of that. How would you answer that?
Speaker 1:Absolutely well, I would tell you. It all starts with your computer network. So the computers in your office drive everything I cannot take. No one can take an X right with the digital sensor unless it's plugged into a computer, and I think in dental I see offices really going trying to stretch their computer technology as far as they can and not recognizing that, in terms of the investment, the computer technology is sort of like an engine in a car.
Speaker 1:If your computers are old, if they were upgraded maybe. I see this many times doctors upgrade from Windows 7 to Windows 10. And then they may have problems with their digital X Ray. That runs on the US B bus. Well, what you have to remember is a Windows 10 computer was developed with Windows 10 in mind, so the architecture was developed to optimize Windows 10, whereas the Windows 7 computer was developed with that architecture in mind. So upgrading is not a good idea.
Speaker 1:So I think that what I would say is really spend some time looking at your computer network and make sure that that's up to snuff to run all of your technology, because the computer aspect is really very inexpensive, related to the technology that you're plugging into it. I'll give you an example of the computer that I have here on the screen behind me is about four inches by four inches. It's a little nook computer that's on the back of the screen and it's an I five 11th gen. It's got 16 gigs of RAM, plenty fast, solid-state hard drive, does everything you could possibly want to do, and that computer was six hundred dollars. And there are offices out there that are spending seven, eight, ten thousand dollars on sensors and they're trying to plug them into computers that are 10 years old that they've upgraded twice. And I would say that's always. A bad strategy is to try to take really critical pieces that are relatively inexpensive and stretch the line. So that would be the first thing I would say is understand the technology that you're plugging into your computer. So that would be the first thing I would say is understand your IT environment and the usable and I say usable. You can use computers for 10 years, but as they start dying you have all sorts of intermittent problems. And what is the cost you if every other time you go in and take an X or you can't write or you have to plug it, unplug it four or five times to finally get it to work? It obviously cost you time, but it also embarrasses you in front of your patient as well. So that would be, I think, one of the top things I would look at is understand your computer network. You have all the computers tied together, so you have the performance of each individual computer, and then you have your server. We're all of your data is stored, all right. That's where all your data is stored, so that server is very important. So understanding backup of data is also a critical aspect to your business.
Speaker 1:I've seen too many offices lose data, and they should have never lost data. I've seen instances where IT people were taking care of the networks and they didn't realize they had to, for example, close down the practice work server before it was backed up, and then they had a failure and they couldn't get their data back because they never had a really good backup. So I would say really know that you have a good backup. Backup always has to do with redundancy, so you should not only have hard drives on site. Today, web storage is so cheap. You should also have all of your data on a web server as well. And then also and, by the way, if you have great backups, you don't have to worry about malware like Crypto Locker. I'm seeing way too many offices get hit with ransomware. They discovered they don't have a good backup, or perhaps their backup was connected when they got the ransomware and now their backup drive is locked as well and they end up. I know one office that, in total, spent $100,000 and ransom to get their data back. So it's terrible, but it can be prevented.
Speaker 1:And that's the first thing I would say is really get knowledgeable. And I'm not talking about knowledgeable where you can add a PC to your network Okay, I'm talking about knowledgeable. And how is my data backed up is how do I know that that data is integrity? Well, how you know it has integrity is you do a test restore and you don't do a test restore? Whoever's charging you, your IT, to do the backup? That needs to be part of the plan is hey guys, I want to see a test restore once a month, right To know. I want to get alerts to my cell phone if you need to. All these things can be automated.
Speaker 1:I think too often we put critical responsibility for our business and other hands and we hope that they care for it as much as we do, and we only understand that they don't when we have a really bad situation right, and then they're nowhere to be found. So that would be one thing I would say is understand your network, understand your network, understand your network. Have good staff computer usage policies. Okay, you know, going to tick, tock and all that stuff. Do that on your phone. Don't have staff members surfing the web, you know, clicking on funny things that the friend sent online. That's really the number one way to release ransomware, as you get trusted, tricked into clicking on something you should not have. So trusted sources. That's another thing. I think a good IT environment in dental involves a router that is black or a firewall that is blacklist in certain sites and, better yet, a white list of only the sites you want your dental people to be able to get to, and then, if there's one that they need to get to, it gets added to the list. But that would be number one, the computer aspect, and then number two, and these aren't necessarily in order. I'm giving you a few nuggets.
Speaker 1:A thing that I've seen in doing digital x-ray for many years is the digital x-ray is all about what they call the imaging chain. So you've, of course, got your source, your exposure, whether it's a DC or an ACXray head, and then you've got your receptor. That might be a phosphor plate, it may be film, it may be a digital x-ray sensor with the wire, it may be the DCR without a wire. And then you've got your computer and your computer software and there's you cannot get an x-ray by removing one of those pieces, they all fit. And then what else you have? You have your operator, and the operator is the biggest determinant of quality. Thank you, assuming your system is working properly. Okay, so I always say you know some fundamentals of taking X-rays I think need to be revisited by staff members. I frequently go into offices and I see the X-ray head right out here, right, and it should be up next to the skin in every instance. There's no advantage at all to having an X-ray tube out here, although I found offices have not been trained properly, because they'll tell me oh no, we were told that's the way that you need to do it. So that's something that I say is one get your staff properly trained and understand your technology.
Speaker 1:Each imaging receptor requires a different amount of energy to be optimally exposed, and the biggest thing that I see with digital X-rays is because most digital X-ray sensors have a very narrow exposure latitude. That means you have to shoot it with a value that's within a couple milliseconds right to have a properly exposed image. And, dr Sifarian, have you noticed that in your own practice that you've apparently occasionally seen overexposed, dark or light-grain images? Yeah, absolutely Okay. So that's all due to exposure. And distance has a lot to do with that, because in the equation, distance is squared for the amount of energy hitting the sensor. So if you pull back two inches you've greatly reduced the amount of energy. So, understanding that and staff shooting images properly, that's one great thing about the DCR. It's got such a wide exposure latitude that you can literally double the exposure and not burn out the image. So that's an amazing. But it has to do with the different technology that it uses. So ultimately, with all wired sensors to get optimal results, upper posterior PA requires the most exposure. Lower anterior PA requires the least. This exposure level is typically two times the exposure of lower anterior because of the density. Assuming distance is correct.
Speaker 1:Most offices I see it all the time they're using one value, so they'll have greeniness back here or they may have burnout down here because they don't want to change. And that's one thing that I've noticed over all these years. You know you got to make it simple, okay, and X-ray, and if you look at your X-ray head you have all these different settings. You have presets. Staff doesn't really know when to use them and they don't use them and therefore they don't get good quality. With the DCR we can set it on one exposure level and get good quality for every image. So that's something that, again, in understanding what I'm coming down to here, is really understanding your technology and being properly trained on it, because I feel too often staff members are saddled with all this technology. No one shows them how to use it. The doctors frustrated at them, they're frustrated at the technology. No one's happy and sometimes, as you know and I'm sure you've had technology that you've broken and put it in the cabinet right, or you've put it in the corner and every time you look at it you almost shed a tear right Because it was expensive. And so that's something that I always say if you're getting a piece of technology, really do your research Really, make sure that you're committed and your staff is committed to learning the nuances of making it work.
Speaker 1:Digital X-rays one example of that. Combbeam is another. You know one of the foundations, dr Bruno Acevedo, who's an oral radiologist. He was a professor at the University of Louisville, a lecture nationwide on CombBeam, probably one of the most foremost experts in the US. He's actually getting ready to his endo residency as well. But he talks about the four pillars of CBCT and one of them is acquisition, and that relies on the staff properly acquiring the image using the proper exposure parameters. One of the things that Dr Bruno points out is that there's far too much hype over radiation levels in dental, and if you watch this segment on digital X-ray and radiology and the levels of exposure, he said there's no dental X-ray procedure that has anywhere close to the upper limits of where you should be. So he said always shoot for quality, don't shoot for exposure level, shoot for quality. And so that's something as well, not getting hung up on numbers that we don't understand, that the staff doesn't understand.
Speaker 1:I remember the SUNY sensor that we sold thousands of. The SUNY's claim to fame was the lowest exposure. But the reason I had the lowest exposure is it had the lowest resolution as well. It had the largest pixels. So there's no cheating physics. You want higher resolution, you want greater detail. It's going to take more exposure. It's going to take a smaller pixel, smaller pixels, smaller voxels to get good. Exposure always takes more exposure.
Speaker 1:Now, today there have been industry players that have made exposure a big deal, trying to make it a big deal, but the reality is all of the machines you can turn them down low, you can shoot an image, you can filter it and have the image look pleasing to the eye, but there's not as much diagnostic information there. So that's the thing as well when I'm talking about this is really understand your equipment, understand how to optimize it. And in imaging, I think that's critical because you've probably seen great x-rays or good x-rays and you've seen terrible x-rays at the same time, and when you get a terrible x-ray, that's your main means of diagnosis. So if you have really bad information there, it's not going to help you.
Speaker 1:Another thing, another point that I would make, is the inter-roll camera. Inter-roll camera I remember when I got back, when I got into dental in 92, it was the next great thing and dentists were actually paying. Our inter-roll cameras were $12,000 on a cart. They had a TV. One of those old CRT TVs had a video printer that would pop out your Polaroid with four images on it, right, and it had a big old camera and I used to get up at 5.30 in the morning and try to make three appointments in Michigan and that's why I put 60,000 miles a year on my car. I'd load all that stuff up in the back of my little Honda Civic and take off and get back at 9.30 at night. So I remember all that Good old days, right Back when I had a pager and I'd stop at a cell phone with a handful of quarters. I never got into it, but you know, it's much easier today, even though I hate this thing. It's much easier with this thing.
Speaker 1:So, but you know, the inter-roll camera, I think, is really overlooked, like today, for example, you can get an inter-roll camera off of eBay for $49. Now, it's not a very good one, okay, but it'll do the trick. It'll show an image and it's a throwaway device. It will break, okay, it will break. You know. You can get one that's a little bit better, quite a bit better, for $179 or $200. You can get a very sophisticated round for $3,000, $4,000, right, so are the same as in the photography world. We can go get a sub-100 camera or we can go to the camera shop and spend thousands of dollars and we know we're going to get better results with the $5,000 camera than the $50 camera, but they're both going to take a picture.
Speaker 1:But I think the biggest mistake that offices make is not empowering their staff with the inter-roll camera and making that in every patient, every time experience. When I got into inter-roll cameras, when we got around to actually capturing images into computers, I created what I call the new patient exam and I've got it on YouTube showing me taking this in under a minute its face, smile, upper arch, lower arch. Then it's five images of the upper and the order, the numerical order, and five of the lower, and then it's close-ups areas of concern. And I can show the staff how to do that exam the first 14 in under a minute. Well, when you have a staff member taking that and reviewing it with the patient, it now saves you time Because when you come in the office you don't have to focus, or in the operatory, on the problem, you focus on the solution.
Speaker 1:And the patient is asking you about the solution. And I recognized early on dentists like to be clinicians, they don't like to be salespeople. And I said you know your time, the typical dentist time, I believe, at least the ones I deal with is at least $1,000 an hour, whereas the assistant time may be $20 an hour. Now do I want to have you spending five minutes explaining to a patient with pictures that they have a problem, or would I prefer that that be done when you walk in the door by someone who you're paying $20 an hour? And the other thing I found is this when the staff gets really good at using a camera and they have really clear pictures, the case for treatment is already done by the time you walk in the door.
Speaker 1:Patient is asking you about things, and one of my longtime clients told me he said Dave, I love this new patient exam because when I walk in, I don't have to tell them about problems.
Speaker 1:My staff's already done it. So that's something that would be. Another little tidbit I would say is really get your staff motivated in using the interoral camera and make sure it happens every time, because then that's a point of value. That's how you can teach the patient about their oral health and what to do to improve their oral health and why you're doing procedures, and so if you do a procedure, you definitely want to get the camera out and show them before and after, right, and that's something that I see offices oh, I didn't have time for that. And my thing is always this if you did it and you're making more money for the practice and providing better care for the patient, is it worthwhile to shift and use that time for that? That's just, that's another little thing, but those would be three things that I would say could be beneficial for a practice to sort of focus on in terms of technology.
Speaker 2:Well, I tell you what. There is so much in there that you shared and there's so many things that I hope I didn't forget. I want to ask the questions, but it really starts with me, with you don't know what. You don't know Absolutely. You know as much as you share all this information right now and talk about the fact that it's about the computer network. And If you up well, I shouldn't use the word upgrade but if you keep up with the networks as you progress with your technology, there will be less glitches in your Efficiency with your system. Yes, I can't tell you, and I'm sure you hear this a lot more than I do. By the way, before I go into this a little further, we did have a little glitch A few minutes ago. So if anybody has any questions, Please feel free to ask the question and and we'll make sure that it gets answered.
Speaker 2:But, going back to what you were saying, you can't work on 2007, 2010, computer technology and try to put in 2022 software from other companies in. You're certainly going to get glitches right. You're certainly going to have issues where there's going to be a connection problem or an integration issue or Not able to read this and not able to read that and it becomes. It becomes pretty messy and unfortunately what happens a lot of times is the doctor doesn't know where the problem is. They think it's the software company or the printer or you know the computer. Um, I would say, probably the last thing they look at is their computer network.
Speaker 1:Absolutely, you're absolutely right, and they they don't want to believe. And this is the other thing that I see. And no offense to IT people, because there are some excellent IT people out there in dental that know this stuff inside and out, um, and then there are some that really don't know dental and I think that's the. The big problem is um. You know, anyone that wants to call themselves an IT person today really can right Um when they come into your office, dr Safari, and you don't ask them for their credentials, right?
Speaker 2:Well, let me say this that applies to dentistry too. Any dentist can call themselves a cosmetic dentist. Any dentist can call themselves an all-on-act surgeon, um, and they can market that and it fits within their license, and a lot of doctors do that. The question is are you really a cosmetic dentist or an all-on-act surgeon, or are you not, um? And that's that's the challenge. That's where the quality comes into play. So my point to you is is we don't understand, just like the normal public doesn't understand, the difference between quality and and low quality cosmetics or surgery. We don't understand if you're a high quality IT guy or not.
Speaker 1:Right, just don't well, and I'll tell you, I used to own an IT company, by the way, in dental, and I didn't enjoy it. I enjoy imaging, but we were very good at our IT and at the reason and the reason we were good as this One. We set a standard where every five years you replace all your computers. Period Okay, to work with us, it's this. We would get del optic, plex, business class machines. We knew the hardware was good. We would buy at the mid to higher end of the processor. So this is the thing you have to remember. You can buy a computer today that's based on seven year old technology, eight year old technology, because those processors are less expensive. I I never want to buy on the super high end Okay, because I don't think that makes sense unless you have the need for it. But really, on the mid to high can give you five years instead of three. And you have to remember, if you google, what is the average year, the average use of computers in business, how many years? It's three, it's three. So stretching it to five is okay, but my thing, I don't see dent.
Speaker 1:A lot dentists do that. They had to do that to work with us. I told them look, you lease us for five years you had, and then four years, eleven months, we replaced and now everything's under warranty. But just know it's going to happen that way, it's not going to be. Well, hey, dave, I got five years. Why don't we just wait till they die, one at a time? And no, because if you want to do that, we'll double your service contracts. We're going to be out here a lot more frequently. So that's the thing about. This is a good it company can tell you this is the way to do it, this is the way to optimize. Okay, I can give you, I can give you a complete checklist how to optimize everything, how to optimize your software, your integration.
Speaker 2:Well, david, I don't mean to cut off, cut you off here, but I just want to kind of understand. So what is the cost for doctors to understand this, this cycle of Investing into their computer network? You know it's a lot of times doctors just fear the Project and they're like I just don't have the time to deal with this, I'm too busy. Time is always a concern. Let's say an op, an office of. You know five Operators, which is pretty standard, and you know five, six operators, which is pretty standard. What is the time and the cost to do something like that? You know, talk about that a little bit.
Speaker 1:Absolutely. I always say you know you're going to have costs, whether you write a check for it or you make payments, right I mean. So there's always cost. And what I, what I've really tried to Help every dental office understand, is you always have a monthly cost of your computers. Even if you wrote a check and they're paid off, there's always monthly costs. Part of that cost, as they age and they start to break down, is the inconveniences. Oh, I couldn't take x-rays today on this patient so I lost the revenue of that full mouse series and we have to reappoint them right. And you know, or you know, the front desk Computers not working. You can't check the patient out and then you have to walk them back to another computer. So you have cost associated with having technology that's not optimized and a dental practice, and so you recognize you will always have ongoing costs. Are you better off to know that that cost is going to be an x amount per month? Yes, you are, because x amount per month, every single month, means that you can plan for no headaches and that's why I always tell doctor look, if you want to replace your stuff as it dies, think about that. It's all gonna die. So you have a dying, may have two die this month, and then you get three and you're always upset and the staff's always upset. And who gets the new computer right, who gets the old one, you know. And then now you have one hygienist that's upset and she's like well, you always complain at me, but my computer is breaking down, she's got the new one, you know. So you can avoid all of that if you recognize Okay, first off, you have to get an IT person you trust with the plan that you trust.
Speaker 1:Whenever IT people are telling me, oh yeah, take your five year old computer and put Windows 10 from Windows 7, I say run, don't walk. Run, don't walk because ultimately, I know for a fact the amount of time that they're going to charge you is probably at least two hours to upgrade that. So you've probably got 250, 300 dollars and that's almost half the cost of a brand new PC. They'll last you five years. So that's not a good investment. And I can also promise you that you'll have problems, most likely if you have digital x-ray. When you do a seven to ten upgrade, you have all sorts of weird, flaky problems that are intermittent.
Speaker 1:Okay, so, so these things I'm like, hey, if you take this path where you just accept a monthly Payment but you're not going to have problems and then you plan ahead, we would plan we'd say, look in five years, four years, 11 months, that's being done. So you know two months before what's a good day for that and staff isn't in. Everything comes in and it goes out and if it's done in that way it's predictable. I know to do that is not going to take more than two hours per PC To put it in and load everything, and so a lot of this just is. You know and I know in dental you have to buy so many things.
Speaker 1:But you have to really look at what is it worth To you to keep up the most important thing in your office, which is your computer network, because if you're relying on that you can't operate. If all of you, if your server's down, you don't know who's come in your office, right? You can't take x-rays, can't pull up treatment plan, you can't do anything, you're dead in the water and you have to think about. I've seen servers go down where offices were closed for three, four days Because their IT person couldn't get there to do it hey, we've got other jobs or they had to order a new computer, all the things that happen when you're in an emergency situation, especially in now post-covid, or covid right right in the mix of it, and everything is more difficult to get in short notice.
Speaker 2:Well, I will tell you that we use this example, all the time and I talk about this also is the the concept of being proactive versus being reactive. Yes, and unfortunately, when it comes to computers and technology and and you know, connecting as one, we're very reactive and you know, when you're reactive, you're always in crisis mode and you know you're always in crisis mode, and, and that certainly is not healthy and it doesn't benefit anybody in the practice. All it does is it really adds stress. So, on that note, what are some things? I mean, like you said, if, if your IT guy comes and says that's upgrade seven to ten run. What are some other pointers that you can recommend for doctors to pay attention to as deal breakers when it comes to choosing their IT guy?
Speaker 1:Yes, certainly. Well, the first thing, if I were choosing an IT person, um, I would ask them to inspect my environment and give me a full report on what is in my environment. That's the first thing I do, because for me, you could ask me to do that and I could do that in 15 minutes, depending upon how many computers you have and if I knew you purchased them all at the same time I'd look at one of them and I can find out. I can run what's called a Velo B-E-L-A-R-C. I can see every software on your computer, so I can see okay, you have Eaglesoft and you have Dexus, right. And so once I had that, I would say well, what do you know about this if you have Dexus? What has been your experience with Dexus? Well, I've got 25 officers that use it. Doc, I'm very familiar with it. I know Jim down at Dexus is the guy I call when I have problems. Okay, that person knows they're like well, I don't know what Dexus is, I don't know. I mean, that's the whole thing. If someone comes in, they don't know what a digital sensor is. They don't know what a panoramic system is. They know none of that. They don't know anything about the mouth, they know nothing.
Speaker 1:I would say it's not even worth your time to sit down with them. I mean, I say you only interview. If I were narrowing it down, I only interview IT companies that work in dental. And then I go online and I look do they have a website? Do they have reviews, good or bad? Right, then I would go to Dentaltown and I would check if anyone has had good or bad situations there and then I would ask them do you have experience with my environment? Do you have experience with my environment? And if you have a problem that you've been experiencing in your environment, hey, could you troubleshoot this? Maybe that as well. How would you troubleshoot this? Because those are things that really you don't want there to be a finger pointing situation when you run into problems.
Speaker 1:When you have a good IT company, they're seldom a finger pointing situation because they will call dental TI and they'll say, hey, dave, we've got these sensors here, we need to know this, this and this, and I'll say make these settings, do these permission changes and they'll say, gotcha, and they'll do it. You know, a bad IT guy's never seen, not a bad. You know IT person is not knowledgeable about dental IT. They call you. They have no idea, no clue what questions to ask, and I don't wanna spend two hours educating them, right? And if I do have spent two hours educating them, I've got to bill whoever has sent them or I've got to bill them. So that's sort of why you don't want to have someone that's not knowledgeable about what you're doing, operating your computer network.
Speaker 1:And then the other thing is I would say I wanna see your complete strategy for updates, backups and protection. So malware protection, antivirus. You know, what are you guys gonna do for me in those three areas? Because that's very critical. If you have software, you have to keep it up to date, right? And I also wanna know do you know how the software that I have integrates? Those would probably be the four things I would ask to give me enough comfort with that IT company to know that they're not learning on my dime.
Speaker 1:And I think that's what happens when you don't get experts. I mean you know, I mean I don't have it. My personal. For me to come into an office as a consultant is at least $1,000 an hour, but I can solve a ton of problems in an hour because I know everything you have in the office. I know history. I just know so much about it that one hour of my time might be like 10 or 20 hours of someone else's time. So I have to go out and learn about that.
Speaker 1:And I think it's the same with what you were talking about, cosmetic dentistry. I mean, you probably know more about cosmetic dentistry than you know. You probably forgot more about it than some dentists know about it. Or saying they're cosmetic dentists you know. So it's sort of the same type of thing. But when you don't know anything, it's very difficult to vet a service, and I think that some of the guidelines I gave you sort of put it on their shoulders. It's up to them to show you that they know about your environment. It's not up to you to determine do they know? That's sort of how I feel about it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know some really great points, david, and, to be honest, I think there should be a technology one-on-one course for Dennis that are looking to invest in a dental practice and you know how to start. I think one of the mistakes that we make is we're too trusting and sometimes we do go outside of dental. We just figure IT's IT right, it's, you know, a bunch of wires, you just plug it in and everything works Well you know, I'll give you an example and you may be able to relate to this.
Speaker 1:You may be lucky enough to have one. I'm not rich enough either, but if I had a Ferrari, I wouldn't take it to a Chevy dealer Right and expect them to be able to actually work on it. And I think that's the problem. Is we really look at. You know IT is IT when it's not. And you don't, and you said it earlier. You don't know what you don't know, and you know so, and you also. At the end of your practice day, at the end of every Dennis practice day, the last thing they want to do is go and figure out what they need to do for IT.
Speaker 1:So, the first thing-.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know I'm sorry. Yeah, I mean it's just something that's for us as Dennis. As far as our mindset is concerned, we're so clinically based that we don't want to deal with crisis, we don't want to deal with IT, and at five o'clock we want to go see our kids, right. So it's the last thing that we want to deal with. There's so much to talk about and I know we're kind of coming up short on time, but I wanted to talk about the new direct conversion, ftg, dc Air. Can you talk to us a little bit, a little bit more about how somebody can invest or get involved and what you know, what training they need, and tell me a little bit more about that and how they can get ahold of you as well?
Speaker 1:Absolutely yeah. So the DC Air one in terms of the nice thing about it is it works in just about every software package that will allow for a Twain. And our Twain is very sophisticated. It's got function specific to the sensor in there, like the battery level has a button for endo mode so the sensor won't go to sleep. But it works in virtually every software DEXUS, shic, aptarex, all of the popular software packages.
Speaker 1:And the nice thing about the sensor is it's much easier to use because you don't have a cord. So it's much easier to position because you don't have the torque of a wire. And it also is very comfortable. It's got curved. We call that a comfort edge. That edge has less than two millimeters of dead space so you can actually have that going towards the K9 to premolar contact and see half the K9. And if they have thirds you can flip it around and you can see the thirds. So that's the only sensor that can do that, because wired sensors obviously can't. They just go in one direction.
Speaker 1:But the great thing about this in terms of ease of use is what I said earlier. We establish one energy level and our sensor tells. There's a log file. The sensor tells us whether or not it's getting the energy it needs. And they shoot it with one energy level and they get great images. And that's the thing about direct conversion technology and not to go deep into the technical aspect of it. I know you told me earlier that that's give it to you in laypersons terms, so I'll do that. But all traditional sensors convert the X-ray photons to light and they capture the light and in that conversion process you have movement of light, you have inherent blurriness. The DCR grabs X-ray photons directly, so there's no conversion. And you can imagine in imaging anything. If you're directly grabbing what's penetrating that object and not converting it, you're gonna have sharper images. So the DCR's images are in sharp, they're inherently sharp in detail. So the difference is this. And what kind of sensor do you have, Dr Soparian Shick, okay, you have a shick 33?.
Speaker 1:I have a shick, Okay Right you got a shick, I don't know.
Speaker 2:I don't know if it's a 33 or a 30. Yeah, I'm kidding, I don't know.
Speaker 1:I got you? Have you ever looked at those images without the sharp name filter on?
Speaker 2:I have not.
Speaker 1:Okay. If you ever turn off your sharpening filter, you'll see how really fuzzy images are. So all sensors really rely on sharpening to be applied to make it pleasing to the eye. And when you sharpen an image, it's modifying pixels and removing information, so you get artifact. That's why you probably don't do a lot of really heavy magnification on your images, because you can see the artifact when you do that, the DCR you can magnify at a high level and you can see carries, andcipient carries at the beginning stage and the lines are very sharp and they're not enhanced. So the DCR actually has the highest resolution of any sensor out there. It's not even close because it's different technology. And where that becomes important in the future is AI In the future. And why I say the future? Within five years all of your radiographs will be read by AI before you walk in. And the last two weeks I've talked about every AI company in dental. Right now we're looking for a partner if we don't create our own, which we may create our own. They've been amazed by our image quality and they say you know, this gives you the best result with AI because it's not modified and it's true pixel by pixel information. So that's really exciting. But the sensor will be easy to use, it'll be easy to integrate, it's easy to buy and own too.
Speaker 1:I'll tell you something about this sensor no glass in it. It's all homogenized, siliconized construction. There's only two pieces in this and they're both silicon Meaning. You can drop this. You can drop it and it doesn't delaminate or break, it doesn't compress. We actually were the only sensor that has an occlusal sleeve that this can go in, so you can take occlusal X-rays on children. But the you know, and the other thing we've done, we did a two year warranty with the deductible If you were to lose it or break it. Anything else is covered. But we've also right now we have a promotion where we're extending it, making it a four year warranty where the last two years have just a deductible for anything that would happen. So we're really trying to make it easy for you know offices to get into it. The ones that get into it love it. Gordon Christensen, the CR, has done two reviews. So that's the clearest shows, the most detail of any sensor.
Speaker 2:Go ahead. How can one get access or what is? If somebody's interested, where do they go?
Speaker 1:Yeah, so they can certainly go to FTGimagingcom. They can go to dentalticom as well. So so I'm part owner in FTG. I own dentalti fully. We're distributors for the DCR, so. But right now, currently we're sort of selling the DCR directly as well. But the reality is, where we've set our pricing on the direct sales model, you're probably better off to go through a dealer to get a little discount and we'll probably eventually just be going through dealers. But initially we wanted to make sure we had a handle on every sensor out there, the quality, and had a real close connection to our initial users.
Speaker 2:Well, listen, we're at the top of the hour.
Speaker 1:And I want to respect everyone's time.
Speaker 2:If there was anything else that you wanted to add here in the last minute or two, is there anything else, David, that you want to include in this discussion?
Speaker 1:You know, what I would say is, if anyone has questions for me related to something, not purchasing it. Even you know you mentioned something, Dr Safari and a dental technology 101. I like that idea. I'm going to work on that for you. But any questions, please feel free to email me. I'd like to respond to that stuff. I'm passionate about this stuff, so I won't ignore you if you need help.
Speaker 2:Well, I appreciate that, david. Look, there's a lot that you covered here and I can tell you that for the audience listening, at some level it affects them in the details of what you explain, whether it's computer software, whether it's, you know, making sure that your team is not surfing the net and creating viruses within your network, I should say computer network. Sorry, I can tell you, probably a lot of doctors right now are going on 8 to 12 plus years with their current computer network.
Speaker 2:And they're buying technology and it's, and that's where all the problems arise. So, David, thank you so much. I don't think this is the end of this discussion between us. Yeah, and I appreciate you coming on today. So thank you, david, thank you, dr Safari.
Speaker 1:And this was very nice to be with you today. Thank you, you're very welcome.
Speaker 2:Look, I appreciate everybody listening in Very valuable information by David. You can reach out to him on LinkedIn and you saw a couple of the other links that you can reach him with. Certainly, technology is in the forefront of our practices every day and you know I need to update and upgrade myself as well with some of this, so I'm part of that process of learning. But, with that said, I want to thank all of you for joining us today at another episode of Shaheen's Corner and I'm Dr Shaheen Safari and we'll see you soon. Have a great day.