Chicago Dental Society Midwinter Meeting 2024 – February 22, 2024 until February 24, 2024, Chicago – McCormick Place, Illinois.
Information: https://www.cds.org/midwinter-meeting
Registration Information: https://www.cds.org/midwinter-meeting/registration-information/registration-fees
Choose your courses: https://cdscatalog.attregistration.com/catalog/coursecatalog.aspx
Contact Information: https://www.cds.org/about-us/contact-us
Yankee Dental Congress 2024 – January 25, 2024 until January 27, 2024 – Boston – Boston Convention and Exhibition Center, Massachusetts.
Registration: https://www.yankeedental.com/Registration
Education/Speakers: https://www.yankeedental.com/Attendees/Education-Highlights
You can email questions here: yankeedental@massdental.org
The Thomas P Hinman 2024 Dental Meeting & Exhibition 2024, Atlanta – Georgia World Congress Center, Georgia, March 21, 2024 until March 23, 2024.
Registration: https://www.cantonfair.net/event/4814-thomas-p-hinman-dental-meeting-exhibition#registration
Education Courses at Hinman: https://www.hinman.org/education-events/courses
2024 Speakers: https://www.hinman.org/Education-Events/Speakers
You can email questions here: hinman@hinman.org
The SECO annual conference is widely acknowledged as one of the largest optometric educational meetings in the world and is the Education Destination for:
SECO 2024 Dates: February 28 to March 3 2024, Atlanta, Georgia
Registration: https://attendseco.com/register/ Register before January 20, 2024 to take advantage of their early bird discounts!
You can email SECO with questions here: seco@eventsphere.com
SmileCon 2024 Join dental professionals from around the nation for SmileCon® 2024, Oct. 17–19 in New Orleans.
Verify CE Credits: https://www.ada.org/education/smilecon/verify-your-ce-credits
Have a specific question about SmileCon® ? E-mail the ADA at SmileCon@ada.org
Not an ADA member? https://www.ada.org/join-the-ada/about-ada-membership
ADA member benefits: https://www.ada.org/join-the-ada/member-benefits
On April 19th, the U.S. Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) released Recommendations for Re-opening Facilities to Provide Non-emergent Non-COVID-19 Healthcare:
With regard to planning for patient flow and physical distancing in your office, here is an excerpt from the recommendations:
Develop an action plan for your staff before you open your doors for both routine and emergency care. Effective intra-office communication can help to your staff route and prioritize those patients who require urgent or emergent care, those with original appointments and those patients who need to be rescheduled.
Identify strategies for your office that manage patient flow and ensure appropriate physical distancing.
Instruct patients that companions should remain outside of the facility and not accompany the patient into the facility unless they are a parent/guardian of the patient or if they are a true caregiver and need to assist the patient. Comlite allows for communication from the operatory to the front desk to pass information to a parent, family member or caregiver in the waiting area.
As you re-open it is important to reassure patients of your office’s commitment to maintaining up-to-date infection control procedures.
Stay safe!
The ADA Task Force was convened to advise in the development of tools to support dentists who are returning to work after the COVID-19 closures and practice restrictions. Here are some ADA guidelines for a “Chairside Checklist” where Comlite can help with compliance:
Keep staff level in operatory to the minimum required.
Limit access to the operatory to the “patient only” whenever possible. Comlite allows for communication from the operatory to the front desk to pass information to a parent or family member in the waiting area.
Cover keyboard of computer with disposable, flexible, clear barrier (e.g. plastic wrap) and change between
patients. This is a good practice to adhere to Covid-19 and beyond.
As you re-open it is important to reassure patients of your office’s commitment to maintaining up-to-date infection control procedures.
Stay safe!
WALKING A FINE LINE TOWARD EFFICIENCY (Excerpt from on-line article) https://optometricoffice.com/walking-a-fine-line-toward-efficiency/
BY SHAROKH KAPADIA, OD, FAAO ON PATIENT CARE
By using technology to our advantage, we can see more patients without sacrificing care.
Many of us find ourselves walking a fine line as far as how many patients we see each day and for how long. Consider: To compensate for reduced reimbursements from managed-care plans, we want to be more efficient so that we can see more patients to make up for lost revenues. Also, I’ve found that many of my patients, who have busy schedules themselves, don’t want to be in the office for more than one hour. But, if you trim the exam time too much, patients may start to feel as though they aren’t getting the care they deserve.
My associates and I try to perform 18 complete exams a day as well as see patients whose visit is for a specific issue or a contact lens check. That means we had to become more efficient. Fortunately, technology has enabled us to do so in several ways.
PAGING SYSTEM
We use the Optometry/Ophthalmology Office Paging Software from Comlite Systems, which tells us where patients are and which room the doctor needs to go to next.
The Comlite software uses light buttons and audible chimes to show which exam room patients are in and what tasks need to be done. The Comlite system lets you view eight messages at a glance, and dropdown messages are available. In the image shown above, for example, the screen to the left shows that doctor 1 (the white DR 1 button) has a patient waiting up front, is in exam room 1 (the red light on the Ex 1 button) and has a patient waiting in exam room 4 (the green light on the Ex 4 button). Doctor 1 has paged a tech to exam room (the red light on the white tech button).
Doctor 2, meanwhile, has three patients (the red light on the blue DR 2 button) waiting up front, is in exam room 2 with a patient (the red light on the blue Ex 2 button) and has paged an optician to exam room 2 (the blue OPT button with a red light). Dr. 2 also has a patient who is dilating and is in the dispensary.
Sharokh Kapadia, OD, FAAO, graduated from Michigan College of Optometry and did a residency in ocular disease at Bascom Palmer Eye Institute. He is in private practice in the Greater Jacksonville, FL, area.
After consumers reported a number of problems with the latest major update to Windows 10, Microsoft responded by preventing the October 2018 Update from being installed on some systems. Microsoft announced that the Windows 10 October 2018 Update was available for download when it announced its new Surface Pro 6, Surface Laptop 2, and Surface Studio 2 at a media event on October 2 in New York City. Since then, users have reported a number of wide-ranging issues caused by the update, including lost files, issues with CPU usage, and reduced battery life post-update.
The problem with disappearing files has been widely reported on various social media forums, including on Reddit and Twitter, with one user reporting on Microsoft’s community forum that he had lost up to 220GB of data after the update. Affected file types include documents, music, and photos. “I have just updated my windows using the October update (10, version 1809) it deleted all my files of 23 years in amount of 220gb,” forum member Robert wrote. “This is unbelievable, I have been using Microsoft products since 1995 and nothing like that ever happened to me.”
This problem may be caused by OneDrive. Twitter user @coolkevinator noted that if you have locally stored items that aren’t also saved to OneDrive, the Windows 10 update will wipe out the files stored on your computer. “Heads up to anyone updating windows,” the tweet said. “Apparently, if you have documents saved in your user directory, i.e. users/JohnDoe, and not one drive, the update will delete EVERYTHING in that location. So if your ‘Documents’ or ‘Pictures’ don’t have a one drive symbol, MIGRATE IMMEDIATELY!”
According to MSPowerUser, rolling back the install the previous version of Windows 10 does not bring back the files. If you’re updating to the October 2018 Update, be sure to backup your file to an external drive, OneDrive, or another cloud storage service in case of data loss.
Another issue caused by the update relates to the Intel Display Audio driver. This glitch affects users running PCs with Intel’s 6th-Generation Skylake processors or newer. Users reported excessive CPU usage, which will lead to diminished battery life. Microsoft and Intel both acknowledged the issue, and Microsoft has halted the update to affected systems. “To ensure a seamless experience, we are blocking devices from being offered Windows 10 version 1809, until updated Intel device drivers are installed on your current operating system,” Microsoft said on its support page. “We recommend that you do not attempt to manually update to Windows 10, version 1809, using the Update Now button or the Media Creation Tool from the Microsoft Software Download Center until newer Intel device drivers are available with the update.”If your system is affected, you can manually download the Intel Graphics Driver prior to downloading the Windows 10 update. This driver also contains the fix for the Intel Display Audio driver glitch.
Although the October 2018 Update is available now, it’s not an automatic process yet. You can manually check for the update by going to Settings, Windows Update, and then Check for Updates. The update should automatically download for all users starting October 9.
For now, users should hold off on updating their Windows 10 PC until Microsoft addresses all the early complaints from the download. If you must download the October 2018 Update, we highly recommend that you back up all your files and install the Intel Graphics Driver before proceeding.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/windows-10-avoided-until-microsoft-174012825.html
Using timing analytics for procedures and tasks to provide average times will quantify timing estimates for employee performance, and patient scheduling. Knowing your average times for various procedures and tasks keeps the staff on the same page, with common goals.
Some common tasks and procedures include:
Average time for doctors and staff to respond to a page
Average time for patient workups
Average time for doctor exams (by type)
Average time patients wait to be seated
Knowing these averages will result in “found- time” and increase office exam time, productivity and profits!