DTUS0710

By Lorne Lavine, DMD ‘Eeny, meeny, miney, mo …’: How to choose a digital camera Part 2 of 2: switching from analog to digital tool to use for this process. Step No. 2: Tell it like it is. Develop job descriptions for each position. Specify the skills necessary for the position. Outline the specific duties and responsibilities. Include the job title, summary of the position and its responsibilities and a list of duties. This is an ideal tool to explain to employees exactly what is expected of them. Step No. 3: Train. I’ve watched this mind-boggling scene hundreds of times: dentists allowing untrained team members to handle tens of thousands of dol- lars in practice revenues. Nothing creates distrust, gener- ates conflict or causes more internal problems than team members who are not trained. They feel insecure and vulnera- ble because they’ve been tossed into a situation in which they are expect- ed to perform duties and are largely guessing at how those responsibili- ties are to be carried out. This is a recipe for failure. Think about it: would you hand them the have found to be particularly good are the Epson V700 and V750-M. In addition, look for a scanner that has the highest dpi (dots per inch) resolution that you can afford. Bet- ter models have at least a 1,200 by 2,400 dpi. Online. Many companies offer online storage and scanning of existing photos. While these online services are an option, they are hardly the cheapest. Expect to pay from $1 to $10 per scan, which can get very expensive if you have hundreds of photos and slides to be scanned. After it’s all digitized Once you find a method of getting your analog or digital photos and slides on to a computer, you need to have some method of storing, cataloging and manipulating these images. The only method before true integration became a real- ity was to use a stand-alone image management program. Some of the better and more popular ones are XDR, Apteryx and Tigerview. As dental practice management software has evolved, there was a need to find a way to integrate these image databases with the management program so most of the developers of these programs built “bridges.” Most bridges, however, are still one-way in that you can call up In part 1 of this article we dis- cussed how to choose an intra- oral and an extraoral camera with detailed information about how to evaluate the different aspects of the camera as well as an explanation of pixels. Now, we’ll delve into mak- ing the leap from analog to digital. For many dentists, the transition to digital photography is exciting and opens up many new possi- bilities for them. The difficulty for most, however, is trying to figure out how to digitize their current photos and slides. There are a few methods for get- ting your prints and slides onto a computer where they can then be manipulated and output to differ- ent sources. Photo or picture CD. For film that hasn’t been developed or with negatives, you can ask the photo developer to put your images on a photo or picture CD. These CDs can be read by all but the most ancient CD-ROM players, and the files on them can be downloaded onto your computer’s hard drive. Scanner. This is currently the only method for getting exist- ing photos or slides into a digital format. I would recommend that when you search for a scanner, find one that has both a backlight and a transparency adapter. Models that I the image management program from the patient screen and all the patient information will already be transferred. However, this method does not allow images that you capture to be transferred back to the patient file in the practice management program. To accomplish this, you need true integration. This type of integration is found with some of the more prevalent programs such as Dentrix, Softdent and Eaglesoft. Output Once you have access to your imag- es and have manipulated them to your liking, the final piece in the puzzle is to determine how you want to output these photos. Obvi- ously, this will heavily depend on how you plan to utilize the images, such as patient presentations, den- tal lab communication, lectures, insurance documentation or online collaboration. Some of the various choices include the following. Inkjet printers. It is important to use a printer that is not only capable of printing medical quality images, but using the right paper is also important. The paper and sup- plies will tend to be more expen- sive for these types of printers; ink cartridges run about $50 and a high-quality paper costs 50 to 60 cents per page. DVD writer. Most new comput- ers come with DVD burners known as DVD-R and DVD-RW drives. These drives are capable of writing the images (or any other files you designate) directly to the DVD so that you can easily send the DVD through the mail or make backup copies for yourself. Removable media. There are many types of removable media that can be used depending on the amount of storage capacity that is needed. Some of these options include USB flash drives. E-mail. Once you have a dig- ital image, any e-mail program will allow you to attach files to be e-mailed. You should ensure that the images are in a standard format that can be read by other programs and, just as importantly, that the files are compressed. An image created with a 10-megapixel camera can be many megabytes in size. Converting this to a JPG file (these are files that have the .jpg extension on the end) will reduce them to 500–750 KB on average. Keep in mind that many people still use a dial-up connec- tion to access the Internet and downloading large files can be very time-consuming, so compressing the images makes a lot of sense. Online collaboration. There are many services that will allow you Digital Matters DENTAL TRIBUNE | March 20106A AD and lead a team of star players. Focus initially on the following manageable steps. You will see improvement almost immediate- ly. Those who are valuable to the future success of the practice will emerge as will those who aren’t. Step No. 1: Get the right people into the right jobs. Some employees are perfectly at ease asking for payment, while others feel as if they were mak- ing some extraordinarily difficult demand of the patient. In the Mary Jane example above, she may be an excellent employee who is in the absolute wrong position. I highly recommend personality testing to place your team mem- bers in positions in which they can excel, not just get by. The Keirsey Temperament Sorter Test found at www.keirsey.com is an excellent f DT page 4A instrument tray, a couple of hand- pieces and say, “Have at it, let’s see what you can do.”? Of course not! Team members must be given the training to succeed and expected to meet specific performance stan- dards. Step No. 4: Encourage the best. In addition to job descriptions and clear and specific goals, your team will also wants to know how you will measure its success. When the time comes to evaluate your team, that too should follow specific guidelines; it’s not just a matter of assessing whether your assistant is a nice person. It is about evaluating how well she/he is able to carry out her/his responsibilities. Used effectively, you’ll find that employee performance measure- ments and reviews can provide criti- cal information that will be essential in your efforts to make major deci- sions regarding patients, financial concerns, management systems, productivity and staff throughout g Continued, ‘Free …’ g Continued, ‘Eeny …’