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October 18, 2006

Larger pieces of dental equipment and technology-related products are often difficult for doctors to evaluate when considering purchase options. Clinicians, with and without product affiliations, periodically test dental materials and smaller pieces of equipment, such as curing lights. For example, Dr. Joe Blaes has done an incredible job over the years with his Pearls For Your Practice® columns in Dental Economics®. In these columns, readers can find objective evaluations of smaller-scale practice essentials such as burs, cements, periodontal probes, and handpieces.

Conversely, it is not feasible to test out several different vacuum pumps in your facility. It is not feasible to mount, hardwire, and field test a sampling of periapical X-ray units before purchasing. Our best feedback on larger equipment and technology-related products is anecdotal and passed along from practitioners in the field experiencing success or failure with specific purchases. The following is a list of promising products of which you may not be aware.

Progeny Preva DC periapical X-ray unit

For many years, the Gendex 770 periapical X-ray unit dominated the market. With the advent of digital radiography and the desirability of DC transformers, the Gendex 765 DC seemed to be the logical successor to the popular Gendex 770. Recently, the Progeny Preva DC unit has made great strides in the marketplace. The Preva DC unit is priced slightly less than the Gendex 765 DC unit and is preferred by service technicians for ease of maintenance and calibration. I like the compact size of the Preva transformer footprint (13.625 inches x 8.5 inches) which facilitates the wall mounting of other devices beneath the unit’s horizontal arm.

For more information, go to www.progenydental.com.

OpTime phosphor plate digital X-ray system by Soredex

Scan-X, by Air Techniques, has been and still is very popular as an alternative to CCD direct-capture digital X-ray sensors. The typical Scan-X practice utilizes the system for intraoral images as well as large format images. For approximately $20,000, you can purchase the Scan-X complete system and make the conversion to digital radiography utilizing your existing periapical and panoramic X-ray units, assuming those units are relatively new.

What has changed recently and possibly created an opening for the Soredex unit is the unqualified success of CCD direct-capture panoramic and panoramic/cephalometric digital X-ray units. (Note: In my opinion, the intraoral direct-capture CCD digital X-ray sensors are still a “qualified” success at this time). The newer digital pan units have decreased in price and improved considerably in terms of image quality and unit performance. A quality direct-capture CCD digital pan (without cephalometric attachment) can now be purchased for $27,000 to $30,000. That same pan unit minus the CCD sensor (and equipped to use film and/or phosphor scanning plates) would typically price in the range of $18,000 to $20,000.

You now have the option of purchasing the Scan-X system without the large format image component for approximately $12,000 and using the $8,000 in cost savings to upgrade your panoramic unit purchase from a standard film-based unit to a direct-capture CCD digital unit. The pricing totals for a complete Scan-X system versus a Scan-X intraoral-only system paired with the additional cost to upgrade a standard pan to CCD digital can be very close if not equal. If you factor in the labor costs and increased time required to scan large format phosphor plates, it is an easy decision to go with an intraoral-only digital scanning system paired with a direct-capture CCD digital panoramic or panoramic/cephalometric unit.

OpTime, by Soredex, is an intraoral system only and is priced less than the Scan-X intraoral-only system. The OpTime scanning unit is significantly smaller than either of the Scan-X scanning drum options. The OpTime scanning unit has a very low profile, enabling placement on countertops with typically positioned overhead storage cabinets. Most standard cabinet combinations which pair a base cabinet and working countertop surface with an overhead inset (not as deep) cabinet provide 18 inches of clearance between the top of the base cabinet and the underside of the overhead cabinet. The complete system Scan-X scanner is 23.5 inches in height, and that requires raising the overhead cabinets in the immediate area of the scanner to at least a 24-inch clearance height. The increased overhead cabinet placement height reduces the accessible overhead storage volume. The OpTime scanner unit is 7.5” H x 8.7” W x 15.5” D. In dental facilities where space is precious, comparable smaller unit options are always preferred.

For more information, go to www.soredexusa.com/optime.

Hydrim L110w instrument washer by SciCan

Most practitioners are unaware of the sterilization process used by their own staff and rarely venture into the sterilization area of their facility. That’s OK unless you need to update equipment or design a new facility. In these instances, I encourage you to review the new improved sterilization options. The Miele Thermal Disinfector has been the most popular unit to replace a portion of the “dirty breakdown” traditional sterilization sequence of rinsing, ultrasonic action, rinsing, and drying of instruments. Once dry, instruments can be wrapped in cassettes or bagged and transferred to an autoclave or Statim unit to complete the sterilization cycle. The Miele unit requires a cycle time of 54 minutes to complete the instrument washing cycle equivalent to the before mentioned traditional steps. The Hydrim L110w instrument washing cycle time is closer to 30 minutes and the L110w is priced slightly below the Miele Thermal Disinfector. The L110w also has a rinse and hold cycle to allow storage of cassettes until a sufficient quantity is accumulated to run a complete cycle. If you have not made the switch to cassettes for instrument setups, you would benefit more from investing in that conversion first and before purchasing an instrument washer.

For more information, go to www.scican.com/usa/dental/hydrim_l110w.php.

Pendulum Mount by Ergodontics

I will immediately confess that I conceived of and developed this product with the help of many talented people and have a financial interest in Ergodontics. Actually, Dr. Kurt Schneider - winner of the 2004 Dental Office Design Competition presented by Matsco and Dental Economics® - demanded (in a nice way) a better way to position a patient-view monitor in his operatories. That inspired us to create the Pendulum Mount.

For many years, we mounted CRT monitors and television tube monitors at 80 inches above the finished floor and in the foot-end corners of operatories. These corner positions were not ideal for upright or reclined patient viewing. Dr. Schneider wanted the patient-view monitor screen directly in front of himself and an upright patient seated in the dental chair for educational purposes. He also requested the same monitor screen have the capability to be repositioned directly above the reclined patient at a higher level and with the screen viewing surface parallel to the floor for entertainment/relaxation viewing during clinical treatment delivery. The request seems straightforward and simple to execute, but it is not. Just ask my wife Pat, who was awakened several times in the middle of the night by the sound of me grinding aluminum rods on a lathe in our kitchen.

To satisfy Dr. Schneider and many other clinicians’ patient-monitor viewing requests, criteria that be met included:

• The patient-view monitor must not obstruct the operatory centerline pathway created by a standard dental patient light used to illuminate the oral cavity. Well-illuminated clinical procedures take priority over the patient viewing a rerun of “Friends.” The Pendulum Mount allows the patient-view monitor to be positioned side-by-side or above the dental patient light.
• In the reclined viewing position, the monitor screen typically must be corrected orthogonally to prevent patients from experiencing the sensation that the screen is diamond-shaped and rotated in a disorienting viewing position. The Pendulum Mount has a portrait/landscape rotational feature to accommodate this concern. The Pendulum Mount allows precise and varied positioning of the screen, enabling the operator to use the screen position viewing line to direct the patient’s head into the most advantageous location to support the quadrant of the oral cavity being treated.
• Cables need be managed and hidden as much as possible. The interior of the Pendulum Mount tube is open, providing a large cable chase to allow all necessary cables a pathway through the tube and into the ceiling interstitial space for the ultimate potential connections to power, VGA outputs, video and/or audio outputs, and RG-6 cable feeds.
• The mounting apparatus needs to “look cool” and not have an industrial machine-shop appearance as many non-medical mounting options do.

For more information, go to www.ergodontics.com.

I promise not to “plug” myself in the next issue of Dental Equipment & Materials. See you then...

Dr. Jeff Carter is co-owner of the Practice Design Group, based in Austin, Texas. PDG specializes in providing architectural, interior design and equipment, and technology integration services to dentists nationwide. Dr. Carter may be contacted by phone at (512) 295-2224, by e-mail at pdgjeff@austin.rr.com, or by visiting PDG’s Web site at www.practicedesigngroup.com.

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