Dental Lab Products Returns!

 

Dental Lab Products® (DLP), the sister editorial resource to Dental Products Report® (DPR), is returning as a product-centered, techniques-based publication, steering lab businesses toward success in the dental community.

“We are very excited to relaunch Dental Lab Products®, an integral resource for dental lab professionals,” said Mike Hennessy Jr., president and CEO of MJH Life Sciences™, parent company of DLP. “In tandem with DPR, Dental Lab Products® places readers ahead of the curve with the highest quality coverage of new lab technology and product launches in the industry, aimed at improving day-to-day productivity and ultimately, the quality of patient care.”
Through various multimedia platforms, DLP provides industry professionals with balanced content, delivering in-depth coverage on a range of topics, including technology, equipment, materials, services and techniques with the goal of transforming dentistry and achieving success in the field.
“Innovations drive efficiencies as well as competitive pressures; therefore, it’s critical to stay up to date on the latest opportunities available to your dental laboratory,” said Noah Levine, editorial director for DLP. “Dental Lab Products® examines topics from all sides to create an unbiased product resource that keeps readers in the know regarding all facets of the industry.”

Coinciding with the revamp, DLP will regularly feature content about all aspects of the industry via article formats such as:

“Solve My Problem” — A showcase of novel approaches to lab tasks and workflows.
“Closer Look” — Firsthand product stories from technicians and lab owners.
“Technique”— Step-by-step workflows with detailed case images.
“Deep Dive” — Explanations of how and why products function as they do.
“Technical Remix” — Reviews of previously published techniques from lab technicians, with updates and tips using current technology, materials and workflows.


Dental Lab Products® (DLP) aims to provide dental professionals working in a laboratory setting with comprehensive information regarding emerging technology and innovation across the industry. A complementary resource to Dental Products Report®, DLP serves as the product-centered, techniques-based content provider steering lab businesses towards success. DLP® is a brand of MJH Life Sciences™, the largest privately held, independent, full-service medical media company in North America, dedicated to delivering trusted health care news across multiple channels.

Phasor Composite Heater Continues to Impress

 

I’ve been a big of warming composites for a few years now.  Practicing in the Kansas City area, sometimes in the winter it gets downright *cold*.  On those days, when we would start our schedule, the office was still warming up a bit and the composite was still cool from the thermostat dropping the temp overnight.  To help make the composite easier to handle and more sculptable, I began to use a composite warmer.

That simple step quickly showed me that, no matter what the temp, warm composite is a dream to work with.  My only problem was that the moment the composite cartridge left the warmer, it began to cool a bit.  If only there was a way to keep it warm right up to the point of placing it into the preparation...

Enter Vista Dental’s Phasor.  I received a prototype device about 20 months ago (the device has been on the market a bit over a year) and I was hooked.  

As you can see from the picture above, the Phasor looks like a typical composite dispensing gun, but the similarities end there.  The Phasor has an LED array at the end of the barrel and this LED array emits infrared light that warms the composite right in the compule.  This also obviously keeps it warm right up to the point that it is delivered into the prep.

The device is powered by a rechargeable battery and heats the composite to three user selected temperatures.  The material is easy to express and a dream to work with in its softer state due to the warming.

It takes the device about 20 seconds to warm the material so I start the device in its warming cycle as I start the process of etching and applying the bonding agent.  That way by the time I’m ready to dispense, the Phasor is warmed up and ready to go.

This device has  proven to be hugely valuable to my clinical routine and is used on almost every restorative procedure I do.  The device is and continues to be *highly recommended*!!!

Ransomeware Hackers Now Threatening to Expose and/or Sell Patient Data

 

News is now starting to show up on the web that in addition to hackers encrypting drives in healthcare settings with ransomware, these same hackers are then threatening to expose PHI (Protected Health Information) on the Internet.  This double pronged attack is one more way that nefarious actors are using to try to force victims to pay the ransom.

This latest trick works like this:  Once hackers gain access to a system, they download a perfectly viable copy of the data and keep it.  Then they plant the ransomware which encrypts the victim’s hard drive.  In most instances when the hard drive is encrypted the computer screen shows a message that has the instructions for how to pay the ransom & often a countdown timer showing how much time remains before the data will be destroyed.

Now, in addition to that, the message also says that unless the ransom is paid all the downloaded data will either be made available on the web or sold to the highest bidder.  The victim is caught in a huge vice with this.  Not only do they need their data, but if it is released there is also the potential for huge fines due to HIPAA violations.

Even if an office has good restorable backups and can recreate their data easily, the fear of this PHI exposure may be more than enough to pay the ransom.

This whole data theft area is becoming dicer by the minute and is one more great reason to turn your network security over to professionals...

Here is a link to a story about an office that was a victim of this type of attack.  

CEREC software wins Red Dot Design Award for outstanding user experience

 

The redesigned user interface of the CEREC software from Dentsply Sirona won a coveted Red Dot Award for Brands and Communication Design in November. The software is the centerpiece of CEREC, a leading CAD/CAM system that enables dentists to complete restorations ‒ from digital impressions to the finished crown ‒ in just a single session. The new digital user interface, enhanced help functions, and the intuitive Touch Pad make it easier to use than ever before.

Charlotte/Bensheim, 13 January, 2020. The "Rebrush CEREC Software" project from Dentsply Sirona and Ergosign was awarded a coveted Red Dot: Brands & Communication Design Award in the "Interface and User Experience Design" category in Berlin. From the 8,697 applicants, the jury chose the high design quality and intuitive user interface of this project.

Teams from Dentsply Sirona and Ergosign accepted the award at the awards ceremony. "This is recognition of the outstanding work and remarkable creativity that our teams have put into the development of CEREC", stressed Dr. Alexander Völcker, Group Vice President Digital & Orthodontics at Dentsply Sirona. "We are proud of having created a new software design with our colleagues at Ergosign that makes CEREC even easier, faster, and more intuitive to use than before. I warmly congratulate all involved in this success."

Just 5 clicks from the digital impression to the crown

The jury was especially impressed by the intuitive and visually appealing user interface and intelligent automation of the CEREC software. It allows dentists to design high-quality, esthetic crowns easily with just 5 clicks, produce them in one of the CEREC milling units, and insert them in the same session. After making the digital impression with the Primescan intraoral scanner, the preparation margin is then automatically marked, but can be modified manually at any time.

This, in addition to functional adjustments within the software and a changed biogeneric algorithm with improved consideration of the minimum material thickness, leads to initial proposals that require practically no modification. Numerous feedbacks and help functions shorten the learning curve and ensure that the CEREC software can be operated effectively from the start. Examples of the help functions are the color analysis function for support when selecting the suitable tooth color and the virtual articulator to determine functional contacts for improved static and dynamic occlusion.

The Red Dot Award: Brands & Communication Design 2019

The Red Dot Award is one of the largest design competitions in the world. The Brands & Communication Design award was initiated in 1993 as the "German prize for communication design". Since then, the award has been given every year to the world's best brand designs and most creative projects of designers, agencies, and companies in the categories "Brands" and "Communication". Around 1,400 international guests celebrated the winners at the Red Dot Gala on November 1 in the Konzerthaus Berlin. After the awards were presented, winners and guests had the opportunity to experience the winning projects up close at the Designer's Night in ‘ewerk’.

More information at www.red-dot.de

Lawsuit Alleges Juul may have Shipped 1 Million Contaminated Pods

 

Interesting info here and some terms via a quote that is NSFW, just so that you are aware...

The former CEO of Juul is alleged to have stated, "Half our customers are drunk and vaping like mo-fos, who the fuck is going to notice the quality of our pods.”

A lawsuit filed recently provides that quote and other info in an attempt to prove that Juul didn’t have much concern over the quality of their products or the health of their customer base.  The lawsuit was filed by Siddharth Breja, a former senior vice president of global finance for the company.  His employment was from May 2018 to March 2019.  The lawsuit also alleges that when he spoke out about the alleged contaminated pods, he was terminated.

The accusation is that Juul put over 1 million mint flavored pods into the market is early 2019 that were contaminated.  The lawsuit states that around 250k kits containing mint refills were contaminated but shipped to retailers who then sold them to consumers who used the affected pods in their Juul systems.

A company spokesperson stated “The allegations concerning safety issues with Juul products are equally meritless, and we already investigated the underlying manufacturing issue and determined the product met all applicable specifications.” 

This is one more piece of bad PR for the entire e-cigarette market.  The latest statistics that I’ve seen indicate 54 deaths related to vaping and 2506 cases of illness related to vaping.  The situation is serious enough that the CDC has created a name for the illness, now referring to it as EVALI (E-cigarette Vaping Associated Lung Inflammation).  The government is very involved in the situation with the CDC setting up an entire area of their website devoted to it.

With the current situation facing the industry, the last thing Juul needs is publicity dealing with a lack of quality control.  Of course, innocent until proven guilty, but nothing looks good for the e-cigarette market for the foreseeable future… not that we really need any nicotine delivery systems available.

Dentistry Ranks as #2 in List of Top U.S. Jobs

 

I absolutely love the profession of dentistry and, from the looks of this survey, it seems that lots of other people love it too.

Every year US News & World Report puts together a very detailed list of the best jobs in the United States.  It’s broken down into several categories such as Healthcare, STEM, best paying, etc.  In the year just ended dentistry continued to hold a strong position.  It is #2 in the overall Best Job category and a whopping #1 in the Best Healthcare category.

As someone in the trenches who practices full time, I couldn’t agree more.  While there are a few days where working at a bait shop seems like a better idea than dentistry, those days are few and far between.  99% of the time I consider myself incredibly lucky to be able to earn a living doing what I truly love to do.  The profession allows you to call your own shots without having to (in most instances) dealing with the headaches that come with a job at a large corporation.  A large percentage of physicians now work for large corporations and while that allows doctors to focus more on patient care, there is also the other part that makes you just a gear in the machine.  Dentistry is not at that point with corporate healthcare… yet.  Most dentists make all of their own decisions without the trouble that comes with corporate overseers.

Dentistry is a terrific profession.  It allows you to help people in ways that they understand & appreciate while also getting to know those people very, very well.  Not many of us enjoy being patients, but people are very good at understanding we are there to help them and to make the experience as pleasant as we are able to do.

I routinely tell my younger patients who are starting to look at their career path, “Figure out what you love and do that.”  Money is important, but it doesn’t mean all that much if you are miserable.  

Dentistry is a tremendous career… if you LOVE it.  However, if everyday when you look in the mirror you are miserable, you should immediately begin to work on finding what you love and working toward *that*.  

To read the US News & World Report report dealing with dentistry, follow the link.  

And if you would like to review the entire article for the lists on every job, follow this link.  

SureSmile learning app honored with AXIS Award for Learning Technology

 

Dentsply Sirona’s SureSmile education team received this year’s prestigious AXIS Award in the category Learning Technology. With this award, the Association for Talent Development (ATD) Dallas recognizes organizations for outstanding engagement in workplace learning and talent development. The SureSmile education team received the award for the innovative learning application SureSmileU. This app supports SureSmile users around the world by providing on-demand learning content in multiple languages tailored to their individual learning needs.

Charlotte, January 7th, 2020. Dentsply Sirona’s SureSmile education team, led by Program Manager Amanda Ballard, was honored with the 1st place AXIS Award in the Learning Technology category at the 5th annual ATD Dallas AXIS Gala.
“Our aim is to train our orthodontic clients and our employees to perform their best in very complex work environments with sophisticated, ever-changing products,” said Amanda Ballard. “To support this critical need, we’ve conceptualized SureSmileU, an app that provides on-demand learning for our digital orthodontic solution and that helps our employees to provide efficient customer support at the highest standard.”

To improve the learning experience for users and employees alike, SureSmileU features artificial intelligence allowing the content to adapt flexibly to individual learners’ needs. In addition, the app is mobile optimized, and desktop enabled, allowing the user to choose and switch between learning devices.

“As the global leader in the dental industry, Dentsply Sirona has a strong focus on clinical education and client support,” said Terri Dolan, Chief Clinical Officer at Dentsply Sirona. “We are very proud of the outstanding and creative work our SureSmile education team put into conceptualizing the SureSmileU app. Congratulations to all of you for making the app a great success.”

Since the launch of the app, Dentsply Sirona has seen accelerated growth in the number of users and adoption among both internal and external customers and a 500% increase in course completions for online training.

SureSmile - the full-service clear aligner solution for orthodontic treatments

SureSmile is Dentsply Sirona’s digital solution for orthodontic treatment with clear aligners. It features a robust case planning tool that enables orthodontists and technicians to simulate treatments and find the ideal aligner designs for each case. Once the design is complete, the aligners are then produced in Dallas, Texas, using a combination of 3D printed models and robotic laser trimming – resulting in aligners with exceptional fit and function.