Living in Southern California has its advantages. One of them is that I’m close to the California Dental Association’s (CDA) bi-annual meetings. The CDA holds two meeting each year. Like every state’s association meetings, these are always great events to refresh, reconnect, and for me, a great way to see what’s new. Last year at the CDA they had almost 100 new products or companies showing for the first time at the CDA meeting in San Francisco. This year at the Anaheim meeting they show 75 new companies! That’s a lot of innovation in just 6 months. If you’ve never been to the CDA they do a really great job highlighting some of the best and brightest in a special area called “cool products”. In case you missed out, here’s a quick rundown of what was new in SF.
What’s New:
Lots of instrument makers here. With cool features like easy grip handles and safer designs.
- Aceton North America was showing 3 new devices that had new features like a new hand piece with glowing power dials to make scaling easier and more effective.
- Coltene was showing a Surgtip Endo Aspirator with a new tip that is better at drying the canal. With only 1-2 paper points needed this should save valuable chair time.
- DentalVibe was showing off a cordless hand held device that oscillates to decrease injection site pain. Not sure how this is better than a little topical on a cotton swab but hey it probably tastes better.
- PractiCure claims to be the world’s first mobile device that tests your curing lights and composites together. It analyzes the change in appearance of your material as it cures. This data allows you to confirm how long to cure your restorations with your curing light and helps ensure your restoration’s longevity.
- Lots of other burs, drills, handles, and scalers to play with and try out.
- Various consumer products such as flossing devices and sonic screwdrivers- I mean toothbrushes.
Service providers
- Some software providers were back with updated versions of their dental software. These were not Cloud Based Dental Software and unfortunately still required local install on your computers and in house server but with new features like e-prescribe and secure messaging they are moving toward extending the paperless office to outside contacts too.
- Paperless Dentist came out as a new Software as a Service (SaaS) provider. This means you don’t own or need to update the software like Microsoft 365 you pay an annual fee and continuously get the newest versions of the software as they come out. Unlike MacPractice it also means that you don’t need to download the software. Like Gmail this software lives in the cloud and you just need a login to start using it. Paperless office addresses patient information management issues like appointment scheduling, electronic forms (including consent forms), social media reviews and a patient portal.
- Ever heard of Yodle? Yodle Ads + Marketing Essentials™ promises to provide what your business needs to find and keep customers—all in one integrated package: Ads, Web Presence, Customer Reviews, Local Search Placement, Email Marketing, Social Media, & Special Offers.
Overall these conferences are a great way to see what’s new and try out lots of devices before deciding what’s right for your practice. It’s also a great environment to get some new ideas and maybe bring back some solutions to help you energize your practice. The next CDA conference is coming up in May. With 75 new companies I’m sure we’ll see lots more devices and services coming up. More to come on that as we get closer to the date…stay tuned for another round of innovative ideas!
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