"You can Help Prevent Forest Fires"-Smokey the Bear

At a recent meeting of our Hygiene department we discussed being more proactive in our patient care approach.  Perhaps we can help our patients do a better job preventing cavities, and reduce our need for searching for them later.  Probably the most important conversation we have in our office with people is about home care.  We work with our patients, and help them find things they can do regularly to maintain the health of the mouth. We try to set attainable goals with them so that both our patients and ourselves won’t be disappointed, and hopefully this will help with their compliance.

Most people brush regularly (or so they say), so if we can use this behavior, and modify it to a more powerful tool, it is a win/win situation.  We try to make Brushing and Flossing more effective by adding in adjunctive therapies, such as: Prescription strength toothpastes in various modalities (for dry mouth, sensitivity, and enamel protection), Chlorhexidine Gluconate Oral Rinse 0.12%, topical paste with bio-available calcium and phosphate, and many others.

Effectiveness of these products comes from proper introduction and expectations of the products along with patient compliance.  Throwing too many items at once at a patient won’t make them use all these items, but introduced in a slow methodical and comprehensive approach has been observed by us to be effective.  Baby steps before running.  These simple steps have us believing the perhaps we can help prevent dental decay, thus reducing the amount of routine restorative procedures and the frequency need of radiographs.

We are working towards a cavity free society; we just need our patients to help us in this journey.   We only see a person a few times a year, and we have a limited time to get our message across, so we need to be effective and informative in explaining why and what we are suggesting for them.  After all, the other 360ish days their teeth are their own responsibility.  We just want to help.  Just  Sayin'.

QR Nation

OK, so who knows what a QR code is?  Those of you involved in Social Media do, but what about the rest of the general public.  People recognize them, but don't know what they are.  They are Quick Response codes,or the funny looking  square  bar codes that are popping up all over the place.

You can find them in all areas of our life:

Magazines
Supermarket packaging
online
promotional items

even in our Dental office.

We borrowed the idea from Dr Jason Lipscomb, of Social Media Dentists, and have a QR sign in each of our operatories that will link your smart phone/device directly to our Facebook page, so that more of our patients can be 'likes', and participate in what we are doing. 




While many people in our rural area don't have smart phones and question what the black and white squares are for (this I expected), I was surprised by the number of QR  symbols I saw at Comic Con and how few people seemed to know what to do with the information.

They were everywhere.  I found them on walls, banners, posters, even on a coaster in a restaurant.

They were used to get free goods, tickets for events, links to movie trailers, even a QR code scavenger hunt to win prizes.

Just this morning in my office I showed a patient how to connect to our Facebook page with the QR app on her phone.

It is no longer just good enough to be aware of ones surroundings, but now our surrounding s can take us to even more places than ever before.

Just Sayin'

Hiatus Over

For those of you that actually missed my Blog, here I am again.  For the rest of you, I'm back anyway.

Life  was getting in the way of living.  Too many obligations and responsibilities this summer interrupted my available time to sit down and type.  I think I'm getting back on track.


My goal to blog while I was at Comic Con with my son, never occurred.  i sent some tweets and the occasional Facebook update, but no real blogging.  For those of you unfamiliar with Comic Con, it is an extraordinary event with over 125,000 people mulling about the San Diego Convention Center.  Not just comic books, but TV, movies, media, books, Science fiction, fantasy, a tribute to the creative arts and popular culture.

If there is one thing that one takes away from this experience is patience.  Waiting in line at Disney is simply practice for the immense lines at this event.  Not just the thousands of people in them but the length of time they take.  It is a great place to meet people with similar interests, not unlike going to a convention based upon your profession, such as a Dental Conference (for me that is), but really do we all want to wait?  Apparently people don't mind if it is for things they 'want'.

One of my pet peeves is waiting, I am an on time person, I hate to wait.  I don't like to wait and I don't make my patients wait.  Unless there is an emergency appointment in my schedule, I will be on time.  We are in control, there is no saying, It was beyond my control.  We,re the ones who schedule the appointments, we have the control to keep things moving.

My thoughts for next year's Comic Con are a new pair of sneakers (running shoes for the younger crowd), and perhaps a collapsible folding chair to occasionally sit on rather than the concrete ground.

Just Sayin'