An educated patient population (i.e., one that has a high “dental IQ”) can be a key factor in the ultimate success of any general dentist’s practice. Such patients are far more likely to accept the comprehensive care you have to offer and be appreciative of that care once it has been completed. Thereafter, these patients become true believers in your practice, converting their friends or family members into that many more high quality patients for you. One way to increase the number of these missionaries within your office is to communicate with them through chairside patient education software.
After considering many of the fine choices available on the dental market among these types of programs, I settled on Click & Print. Developed by prosthodontists Dr. Ken Hebel (practicing in London, Ontario) and his wife Dr. Reena Gajjar, it covers a wide variety of clinical conditions and treatment options along with instructional forms and treatment plans that can be customized for the individual practitioner in both text as well as still graphics. The animation contained in this package, as with all the other brands I researched, is not customizable. There is no voice over narration in this program, a feature I desire, as I would prefer to use my own explanations rather than have my patients hear something that may not completely agree with my philosophy of care.
The clinical conditions covered are comprehensive enough for most general practitioners without going into minutia. Pathology like periodontal disease, dental caries, tooth impaction, periapical abscess and TMJ dysfunction are all reviewed. Several of the movies included with the package effectively demonstrate the consequences of tooth loss, alveolar atrophy and lost vertical dimension. With the customizable text and graphics portfolio, you can add digital photos of your own cases, with text in your own words to illustrate these same situations for your patients. These pages you create can then be printed out and sent home with them as well. Much of the other software I examined of this sort did not have these options, which allow you to control the message to a much greater degree than Click & Print’s major competitors.
The treatment procedures described here encompass the basics: preventive care, oral surgery, endodontics, periodontal therapy and operative dentistry. But they also detail high-end restorative treatment, including inlay/onlay placement, esthetic procedures like vital tooth lightening, and tooth replacement with either fixed prosthetics or implants. Pre-prosthetic techniques such as periodontal plastic surgery, gingival grafting and crown lengthening are also depicted here.
The graphics in Click & Print, whether they are actual clinical photos, artist’s conceptions or radiographs, are always understandable and informative. The animated clips, too, are revealing and sometimes even humorous, as with the presentation of reduced vertical dimension where Dr. Hebel himself is portrayed as ageing several decades in less than a minute. The customizable practice forms and information sheets lend a distinct appearance of individualization and professionalism to the materials you distribute to patients, a feature unique to this software among the programs I looked at before my purchase. An upgrade (upgrades are free with this product) to allow you the option of emailing different sections of the package to your patients is currently in the works. You get all this for $1499 online and, should you catch Dr. Hebel at one of his lectures, you can buy it then and there for $999 (as I did). Either way, this is quite a cost effective alternative in chairside patient education software and one that has returned my investment in it many times over since I began using it. In looking over all your choices in this field, I think you’ll find Click & Print hard to beat.
