One of your many roles as a dental assistant is advising your dental practice on the latest advances in dental technology. These technologies can streamline your workflow, make patient care more comfortable, and enable your practice to book more patients per day. Maybe even expand your service range.
This includes technologies you utilized at AIDA during your initial DA or continued EDDA training, and technologies on you learn post-education. Most dental practices have upgraded to digital X-rays, but there are many technological advancements to consider.
What to Prioritize in New Technologies?
Before we dive into new technologies, let’s explore what your dental practice must prioritize when exploring your options.
- Ease of Use: There are multiple options in each of the technologies below. Prioritize the options that meet the dental teams’ needs in ergonomics, software integration, and overall ease of use.
- Expansion Potential: Many advances in dental technology help you expand or improve your restorative services. This may include visualizing smile restorations or adding Invisalign to your services.
- Time-Savings: While there’s always a learning curve, estimate the time you will save per procedure and how many more patients you can schedule per day.
- Patient Comfort: The more comfortable patients are during general and restorative procedures, the more likely they are to schedule their next appointment. For those with anxiety surrounding dental care, some of the dental technologies below will drastically reduce their anxiety.
- Budget: While your practice must make an upfront investment, between the potential for service expansion, improved patient comfort, and time savings—technology often pays for itself.
#1 Digital X-Rays
AIDA teaches our students to take both traditional analog X-rays and digital X-rays. While digital X-rays are increasingly the industry standard, it’s important to learn both technologies.
Digital X-rays can be taken in the treatment chair and are instantly uploaded into dental software. The image is a higher resolution than traditional analog X-rays and can be used to generate lifelike full-mouth results, comprehensive treatment plans, and smile makeovers.
Digital X-rays vs. Analog X-rays
- Less radiation exposure
- Faster and easier to take
- Sharper imagery
- Less manual processing
- More secure
- Easy to share
- More eco-friendly
#2 Dentrix Software
Dentrix dental software is one of the top picks for creating HIPPA-compliant electronic health records. Beyond digitizing patient records, the software provides a variety of solutions to streamline and optimize your dental practice. This includes integrating with other software and tools, including your digital X-ray system.
After taking a digital X-ray, it’s instantly uploaded to Dentrix, allowing the dentist to efficiently and effectively create a treatment plan.
Dentrix allows your dental practice to:
- View X-rays in 3D.
- Select to view individual teeth.
- Zoom in on the upper or lower quadrant of the mouth.
- Rotate X-rays, open and close bite, and display arch view.
- Create patient records and treatment plans.
- Visually present treatment plans to patients.
- Complete a variety of coding, billing, and clerical functions.
#3 Other Technologies
Dental technology is evolving at a rapid pace. As such, you’ll also need to learn to use practice-specific technology. This training will be provided by your dental practice, and may include any of the following:
- Intraoral camera and CAD/CAM systems for Invisalign and precision treatment planning.
- 3D digital impressions for restorative and cosmetic dentistry, including crowns, bridges, veneers, mouthguards, splits, retainers, and Invisalign.
- 3D printer for printing custom-fit splits and mouthguards.
- Laser dentistry for cavity detection, composite bonding, soft tissue procedures, teeth whitening, tumor removal, anesthesia-free fillings, and more.
- And more!
New Technologies Are Part of Your AIDA Training
In addition to learning your general job duties as a dental assistant or expanded duties dental assistant, AIDA trains our students to use Dentrix software and take both analog X-rays and digital X-rays. Reach out to AIDA today to discuss your initial or continuing education!