A Must for Every Dental Practice

I have long been an advocate of the iPad as the principal and most effective way for a dentist to present dental treatment to a patient. The intimacy of sitting right next to your patient, the phenomenal vibrancy of the photos or images,  the ability to manipulate these images – allowing the patient to touch the screen – these are all great advantages compared to showing X-rays or drawing squiggly lines on bracket table covers.  Or what I really hate is having a patient sit alone in a room watching  a video with voice over.

That is why I am so excited about DDS GP. It is an app that you can download to your iPad. It was invented by Dr. Robert Marcus, a practicing California general dentist. DDS GP is presented as a series of beautifully designed drawings or graphics that illustrate dental problems and the solutions to those problems. The library of drawings is very complete,  literally everything you could ever imagine.

The dentist sits with the patient and has a personal conversation – your words at your pace. Just below the main demonstration area of each screen is a bar with a round handle called the slider. Moving the slider portrays the increasing severity of a condition or the treatment steps to resolve the problem. I especially like the presentations for a fractured tooth and for cracked tooth syndrome. The app also does a great job illustrating periodontal disease and root canal treatment.

I don’t think the graphics and drawings are especially effective for presenting cosmetic dentistry. For that, you absolutely want to have the before and after photos of your nice cases downloaded into the iPad. You can also easily import the digital photographs of your patient’s smile. The DDS GP app allows you to add these photos. Coordinating all of this information  into one tablet will, in my opinion, definitely lead to greater case acceptance.

A very cool feature is the ability to incorporate the drawings you showed to the patient into a custom designed treatment plan that can be handed or e-mailed to a patient.

The technology is very intuitive and easy to learn. You can even draw with your finger right over the graphics if you feel that it will help illustrate a point you are trying to make. I have been told that the app is continuously being improved and updated and that the customer service support is good.

The cost for the app is a one time fee of $400.  There are no subscriptions or annual fees. You can find out more at the company website.