Located just off Harvey Avenue in Kelowna, BC is one of the many offices of Dr. Kendall James. Dr. James owns a multi-location practice specializing in prosthodontics that brings an informed, advanced, and personalized approach to oral health care. Leveraging the latest technology, his patients across British Columbia and Alberta have been receiving customized care that seeks comfort throughout the process of repairing their smiles.
As far as specialists go, you may be hard-pressed to find a more enthusiastic prosthodontist than Dr. Kendall James. Dr. James is a Canadian-born nomad who earned his dental degree from the University of Sydney in Australia before diving into his specialization at the University of Minnesota. Since returning to Canada, he has met with some of the most complex care cases across British Columbia and Alberta. Past President of the BC Society of Prosthodontists, Dr. James now manages multiple locations incorporating the most recent advances in dental technology.
When Dr. Kendall purchased his Kelowna practice, he quickly determined that change was needed. The clinic was still managing their patients on paper, pulling out a large scheduling binder when appointments were made or cancelled. Having worked with different digital solutions in his other locations, Dr. James had already seen the improvements to productivity that came with a good practice management software solution.
With multiple clinics practicing across two provinces, Dr. James wanted to connect offices to better understand the trends, performance, and health of each location. Using third parties to connect his mostly on-premise servers through portals, he was often frustrated by the inconsistent experience. It was tedious if not impossible to look up key scheduling or operational information, while concerns regarding security frequently surfaced through IT groups. Dr. James needed a more robust way to connect his practices and keep everyone on the same digital page.
Relatively early in the days of the cloud, Dr. James approached ClearDent to learn about possible solutions. Already using ClearDent’s on-prem servers, Dr. James wanted to reduce the risks that came with last-minute changes to schedules and charts during his weekly trips between BC and Alberta. When he purchased his Kelowna location, he saw the opportunity to transition to cloud technology. Now, after testing and using ClearDent Cloud, he says his practice has dramatically changed for the better.
Moving from exclusively paper records in the Kelowna practice came with immediate challenges. With 50 years of collective experience, staff thoroughly understood the processes involved in running a practice and providing excellent patient care, but initially struggled to see the value of ditching binders and file folders. Despite this, ClearDent took the time to educate the team on the benefits of a cloud-based digital solution. Dr. James was grateful for how helpful ClearDent was in the process and considered the streamlined training to be a big success.
As staff were provided with a view of the business beyond the day-to-day perio and endo work, conversations started to shift. Before ClearDent Cloud, the team might have anecdotal evidence or a feeling about how the business was performing, but now they were openly discussing referral patterns and what portion of their revenue was based on each coding. With the Cloud’s anywhere-access, this also translated to better communication between treatment coordinators and the front-desk with real-time updates to charts and patient files – even when specialists are out of the office.
“There are certain things that ClearDent Cloud offers that have changed the way I view my numbers.”
Once enough data was generated to inform smarter revenue decisions, Dr. James focused on his costs. Before ClearDent Cloud, he would submit his analytics to 3rd-party companies to compile and organize data. Now direct access to the analytics and insights are organized in the ClearDent Cloud Dashboard, available in the office, at home, or on the road. “Now it’s really at my fingertips with the dashboard that we have […] and I can see it in real-time.
Dr. James also found himself spending less time discussing security requirements. Despite being free to reliably update a patient chart from anywhere, security improved by eliminating third-parties handling data transfers. As time went on, another cloud security improvement became clearer, “We were having more problems with our on-premise servers and IT, than with the cloud.” Dr. James can only recall a single incident of disruption at his cloud offices, whereas his on-prem locations regularly saw costly issues requiring frequent maintenance.
Looking back, he sees the switch as an obvious one, “I don’t think there’s any wrong time to switch over to the cloud.” Modernizing his practice with ClearDent Cloud has provided professional insights, increased efficiency, tighter security, and more control over how he runs his business – even if he’s on the road with his iPad. “ClearDent Cloud has given me the information I need about my clinic anytime, anywhere. It’s exactly what I want.”
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