In the pursuit of competitive advantage over other dental practices in your area, partnering with a digital dental lab or implementing an in-office digital dentistry solution can have practice-altering impact. More specifically, practices that have “gone digital” have realized meaningful savings of chairside time, lab costs and postal costs, while reducing the complexities and frustrations inherent in non-digital environments.

As we will explore later in this article, “going digital” does not necessarily require large-scale investments in new technology or training. Significant and creative strides have been made to make the transition to digital dentistry as nondisruptive as possible. In fact, as a digital dental lab, Glidewell has made it feasible for dentists and their teams to implement digital workflows (and all the benefits thereof) without altering a single element of their in-office processes.

Let’s take a more detailed look at how a digital dental lab can enhance the speed, savings and dynamism of your practice:

Digital dentistry rescues practitioners from dentistry’s “stone age” by replacing cumbersome, antiquated processes — for example, the creation of stone models from patient impressions — with faster and far more efficient tools. Here’s how a digital dental lab like Glidewell shaves time from the restorative process:

• Digital impressions taken with an intraoral scanner can be transmitted almost instantly to Glidewell electronically, cutting the days historically required for mailing physical impressions.
  
  
• Sending digital impressions to Glidewell accelerates your case through our lab. We offer three-day turnarounds for digitally prescribed all-ceramic restorations.
  
  
• Digital case orders receive the care and attention of Glidewell’s Centralized Digital Order Processing (CDOP) team, which verifies data integrity before cases enter production, reducing the time required for potential remakes.
  
  

Naturally, a faster restoration manufacturing process equates to less time between patient visits, meaning you can close cases faster and free your time for more patients (and the income they generate).

Aside from speed, the most significant difference between analog and digital dental labs is the ease with which impressions and restorations can be created. In fact, with Glidewell as your digital dental lab, you need not change a single thing or buy any new equipment to become a digital practice.

No matter your impression preference, Glidewell has a digital solution for you.

1. SHIP IT: Enjoy the efficiency of digital tools without investing in extra technology. With Glidewell Intelligent Manufacturing (IM), your elastomeric impressions are digitized via micro-CT scanning technology at the lab in a matter of minutes, yielding more accurate results. Getting started as a digital practice is as easy as sending a case to Glidewell.
   
   
2. SCAN IT: If you utilize an intraoral scanner to take patient impressions, you’re well ahead of the game. Today, the typical in-lab working time at Glidewell for a digital restoration is just three days. Plus, with model-free restorations made from intraoral scans, you can save $20 or more per unit.
   
   
3. MILL IT: A chairside digital dental lab like the glidewell.io™ In-Office Solution quite literally changes the paradigm in digital dentistry. More on that in a moment.
   

The promise of digital dentistry has been fully realized with the glidewell.io In-Office Solution, which empowers dentists to scan, design, mill and deliver restorations (made from BruxZir^® Zirconia and other industry-leading materials) in a single visit.

More directly, glidewell.io empowers dentists to perform restorative procedures faster, better and less expensively. By bringing in-house tasks and processes that historically have required the intervention of a dental laboratory, dental practices cut costs and virtually eliminate frustrating time delays.

The glidewell.io system is fully integrated with the iTero Element^® line of scanners (Align Technology, Inc.; San Jose, Calif.) and is compatible with all major scanners currently available.

glidewell.io is essentially a digital dental lab in your office, and the benefits of implementing an inclusive solution like this are practice-altering:

• SPEED WITH SMARTS – With glidewell.io, you can fabricate restorations from fully sintered BruxZir NOW Milling Blocks, eliminating the need for oven time or post-processing. Requiring far fewer preparatory steps than its competitors, U.S.-made BruxZir NOW zirconia gives you the tools to provide your patients with top-quality restorations in just one appointment. You can also choose BruxZir Esthetic NOW Milling Blocks for anterior cases requiring high strength and lifelike translucency.
  
  
• SIMPLE SOPHISTICATION – Intuitive fastdesign.io™ Software, much like the tools Glidewell uses in its own lab environment, leverages exclusive machine learning and artificial intelligence algorithms to create customized, one-click crown proposals in just seconds. Furthermore, when you call, text or email Glidewell, you’ll communicate directly with a glidewell.io support technician. Competitive systems can’t make this pledge — calls to their customer service numbers often initiate an infuriating, multi-tiered response in which first contact directs callers to a distributor. If the distributor can’t solve the problem, the call is escalated to the manufacturer, and so on.
  
  
• SINGLE-VISIT SAVINGS – Available at a fraction of the cost of competitor systems, glidewell.io can save you 65% or more on your dental lab bill.* You’ll also receive a direct connection to Glidewell for laboratory support as you bring the company’s own state-of-the-art lab technology into your office.
  
  

Clearly, there is far more to “going digital” than one might imagine — and each of the possibilities we’ve discussed has the potential to streamline your practice’s operations and save time and money during the restorative process. Adopting these digital dentistry benefits moves dentists to the cutting edge of both dental customer care and practice management.

If you’re interested in learning how digital dentistry can transform your dental practice, visit the Glidewell Digital Dentistry web page today.