Dr. Larry Emmott

The primary benefit of using digital images is that they are–wait for it–digital! It seems obvious and yet it is often overlooked. So, what makes digital images so special?

It is 1962 and Dr. Jones has an air compressor installed with air lines to all the treatment rooms running to units with highspeed air turbine handpieces, yet he continues to use the old belt driven dental drill because he just doesn’t trust the new system. That seems silly today, but it is the same situation many dentists find themselves in 50 years later with regards to paperless dental records.

I believe I just got a glimpse of the future. For some time I have been speaking and writing about the far out ways we could be using digital technology in the future. Things like cloud computing, data mining, self learning virtual brains, data base marketing, artificial intelligence and fully automated e-services. All of these far out future ideas have been put into play with a new online service called Practice Activator from ActionRun.

OK, what is an e-service? Remember when e was just a letter? Well now it stands for “electronic” and anything e like e-mail or e–commerce is electronic mail or electronic commerce. But in practice it usually means a service that is not just electronic but it is online. Often as it becomes an e and goes online the “whatever” migrates from being a product to a service. From physical to e