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August 2008 | DPR
Emmott on Technology | Patient Education

8 High-Tech Case Presentation Tools

From simple cameras to sophisticated multimedia programs, a range of tools exist for creating an image-based treatment plan that encourages patient acceptance.


By Dr. Larry Emmott


If everybody always made good health decisions, everyone would be an ideal weight, no one would smoke, and patients would always choose optimal dentistry. Of course, real life in the dental office doesn’t work that way. In real life, people need to be persuaded to make good choices.

 
 
CAESY patient education software distributes informative and entertaining patient education content throughout the dental office. CAESY presentations assist dental professionals in educating patients about a variety of topics, such as restorative treatment options, including a step-by-step description of procedures.
  
Good dental choices would include a root canal instead of an extraction, an implant instead of a missing tooth, a fixed bridge instead of a partial denture, and health instead of neglect. In fact, at the end of the day, the quality of dental care your patients receive is determined not simply by your clinical skill but also by your ability to present optimal care in such a way that patients are likely to accept treatment.

There are many high-tech patient-education and case-presentation tools that you can use to make a case for treatment acceptance. The tools range from simple cameras and digital images to advanced integrated multimedia systems using sound, animation, and full-motion video. Think of these tools as the high-tech version of the old tooth picture and drawing on the tray cover.

Here’s a look at eight of these high-tech case presentation tools and how they can help with your casework.

Intraoral camera
Most people are highly visual. After all, as they say, “Seeing is...” and, “A picture is worth...”
We all know the rest of these famous sayings. What they imply is that a picture is the simplest and most effective tool for a case presentation. This also means that the most powerful education tool a dentist can use is a camera. Of course, cameras aren’t new, but new digital technology allows us to use them much more effectively than in the past to capture digital images.

There are essentially two ways to acquire a digital image in the dental office—via intraoral or digital cameras.

The most direct way is to capture an image from an intraoral camera. Early camera models provided an analog (non-digital) video image, which needed to be converted to a digital image with a video capture card. The latest generation of intraoral cameras creates a digital image directly and connects to the computer through a USB connection.

Digital camera
  
  
The second method of image acquisition is to use a digital camera. The easiest way to start using a digital camera in the dental office is to get a dental camera kit from one of the industry’s camera specialists, such as Lester A. Dine Inc. (dinecorp.com), Norman Camera (normancamera.com), and PhotoMed Int’l (photomed.net). These kits include everything you need: lenses, adaptors, flash elements, batteries, cards readers, basic software and, most importantly, instructions.

Image management software
However one acquires a digital image, the next tool to use is image management software. It allows the a user to capture, store, retrieve, and display images. It’s like an electronic photo album. There are numerous consumer-based photo-album software applications available at little or no cost. These basic applications will work.

A better approach is for the dentist to use a more sophisticated program that actually makes the digital image part of the patient’s digital record.

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