Digital Workflow, Telemedicine & Working from Home

Episode #338 with Dr. Larry Emmott

For many dentists, 2020 forced them to use digital technology to maintain their practice from afar. However, for Dr. Larry Emmott, embracing the benefits of the digital workflow has long been his way of life. Dr. Emmott joins Kirk Behrendt today to explain the steps you should take to streamline your practice and give yourself more time. To learn how utilizing technology will make your practice more efficient and profitable, listen to Episode 338 of The Best Practices Show!

Main Takeaways:

We take our access to technology for granted.

Digital workflow lets you use your digital records to do things differently.

People have always resisted change—don’t let that stop you from improving your practice.

Have staff members understand that technology is not an extra step—it’s just the way things need to be done.

Embracing technology will increase your profitability by reducing the number of staff members required.

There’s so much that staff members can do from home.

Streamline your practice by using technology to implement electronic systems—this will give you more time.

Quotes:

“Have people understand that technology isn’t something extra—it’s actually what makes your practice thrive.” (02:52-02:57)

“Many of the things which we do now that allows us to do this—to have school from home, to work from home, to communicate, to stream movies from Netflix—all of that stuff has to do with the infrastructure of the high-tech world we now live in. If we had been faced with this same issue just twenty years ago in the 1990s, it would have been completely different; we wouldn’t have been able to do all the things that we do.” (04:44-05:10)

“Up until 2020, I was basically teaching people how I could streamline the flow of work in the dental office, but the fact is that because it’s electronic and digital I can do this same work not in the office.” (07:57-08:13)

“People resist change because it threatens their self-image, and they fear loss of status.” (11:54-12:00)

“One of the things I want the dentist and the staff to understand is that when you’re dealing with change, those are the things that you have to deal with; there’s more psychological stuff, and so helping support them, helping to make sure they’ll be valuable—in fact more valuable—after the transition I think is important.” (12:31-12:48)

“If you have good electronic systems, you can do more with fewer people.” (13:38-13:46)

“The so-called crisis isn’t in healthcare—it’s not the care. We have amazingly good care for the most part. The crisis is in affordability—it just costs too darn much money to get sick in America…Telemedicine will allow us to do things in a more affordable way.” (19:52-20:20)

“That was the way you used to have to do it; so it involved a human being getting data, which was paper charts and paper schedules; doing an action, which was making my phone call; to come out with a result, which was the confirmation of appointment…So what we do now is the computer gets the data in the form of the patient’s information…it goes up to the cloud to some cloud computer, it sorts it out, it sends a text message that comes out of my phone back to the patient saying ‘See you tomorrow at 2:30,’ and it does it every day with every patient, with no person ever picking up a telephone.” (23:57-24:44)

“Every time you create a system or put in a technology, you save hundreds—if not thousands—of hours in the future.” (31:25-31:34)

“Our best doctors that had their team members [come] back did the best effort they could daily to truly educate their team on what the