Noah Levine

For good and ill, taking your work home with you has never been easier. The Internet makes it possible to connect to just about everything from anywhere, and connecting to the Internet often is as simple as pulling your smartphone from your pocket or a tablet computer from your bag.

It’s not uncommon for a lab with a complete in-house CAD/CAM system to open up excess capacity as an outsource option for other labs. That can be a way to maximize return on the technology investment, but it doesn’t make the lab into a milling center. Creating a milling center in the truest sense of concept means building a business dedicated to providing dental labs with access to CAD/CAM produced parts that can then be finished into restorations ready for the prescribing dentist to place into the patient’s mouth.

The Lab Gnathodontics Ltd. is a full service dental lab located in Lakewood, Colo. with about 60 employees. The lab specializes in complex combination cases, implants and cosmetic work.  The Product

Designed to recreate the internal effects and characteristics of natural teeth, Lite Art light-curing coloring pastes are highly fluorescent with low viscosities. Featuring a newly developed, multi-functional monomer and photo initiator, they  deliver excellent surface covering qualities.

No one really knows what’s coming just around the corner tomorrow-let alone throughout the next 12 months-but proceeding without even a general concept of what might be on the way can be just as risky.

It’s not as if change is a new thing to the dental laboratory industry. Innovation and embracing new materials, techniques and technologies always have been a part of running a successful dental lab business. However, the pace of that change seems to be continually accelerating, and labs need to constantly adjust to keep up.

Proper infection control and sterilization procedures are about a lot more than just patient and staff safety. Having an efficient sterilization process is critical to smooth practice operations. Having all the tools and instruments clean and ready when you need them takes planning and coordination. Without this, a practice might end up rushing the process in one way or another to get the needed tools to the operatory.

With the economy skittering along on the edge of recession it’s no surprise many dental labs took a cautious approach to major purchases during 2011. The year may have started with hints of optimism in a rebound just around the corner, but as the months dragged on and that rebound refused to solidify, it makes sense that many labs are ready to tread lightly as 2012 arrives.

A Web-based dental laboratory and supply-chain management software, SoundTrack is a suite of innovative tools designed to help labs drive revenue growth, decrease costs and strengthen customer loyalty. Designed to blend seamlessly with emerging dental technologies, labs can manage hundreds of concurrent cases online from anywhere there’s an Internet connection.

I have always been drawn to new technology. When analyzing the WaveOne file, it is clear that a lot of science went into its development. The concept and design behind the file system is built around a conservative shaping approach. The file system allows me to establish deep shape in the apical third of the root canal system while maintaining a conservative preparation in the middle and coronal third.

Flip through the pages of an issue of Dental Lab Products or walk a tradeshow floor, and you’re likely to cross paths with at least one new material. Keeping up with the stream of new options for your lab can be almost dizzying.

Someday chairside digital impressioning may be standard operating procedure and cases will go directly from the operatory to a lab’s computer, but until then, lab scanners will be the main gateway to digital workflows.

The opportunity to do some professional concert photography came about as a surprise bonus from the freelance writing I’d been doing for a number of music publications. I was offered an assignment covering Lollapalooza as long as I could provide them with both the copy and accompanying images, and even though I hadn’t done much serious photography since taking a handful of classes back in college, I wasn’t about to turn this opportunity down.

Information available at laresdental.com Available in three models to meet every dentist’s needs and budget, the LightWalker line of lasers includes a single Er:YAG and two dual Er:YAG/Nd:YAG wavelength models designed for hard- and soft-tissue applications.

1. With a life of 30,000-plus hours-10 times longer than halogen-the everLight eliminates the need to replace light bulbs.

Dr. Matthew Young’s West Hendersonville, N.C., practice is free of many things that can be commonly found in many dental offices. He practices without fluoride, without the use of any latex products and does not place any mercury amalgam fillings.

Information provided by 3Shape. Improving on existing functions and adding expanded capabilities, 3Shape’s Dental System™ 2012 software is designed to provide CAD/CAM solutions for new indications, help dental labs increase productivity and help dental labs help their dentists.

When I recently came across a graphic clearly illustrating the rapid pace of computer technology’s twin progressions of increasing power and decreasing size, it sparked an image in my head of where all this could lead and ways the even more powerful and compact computers of the not-too-distant future computers might be put to use.

Designed for use in full-contour situations, highly translucent Prettau® Zirconia can be used in conjunction with a specialized coloring system to create esthetic, implant-supported bridges.

Whether talking about cell phones where something new and improved comes along every other day or cars where the next model comes out next year, the state-of-the-art in any category only remains so until something better comes along.

3D Systems recently introduced its new ProJet™ 6000 “crossover” 3D printer that combines SLA® part performance with 3D printer utility. The ProJet™ 6000 delivers production quantities of exceptionally detailed and accurate dental working models printed with VisiJet® e-Stone™, a new print material developed specifically to produce dental models. The material is available in a high contrast peach color to illustrate stunning dental anatomy.

Recommendations from friends are still a big part of how patients find a new dentist, but in a time when the whole world is much more closely connected through the Internet those “recommendations” and “friends” are available from a much wider array of sources, all of which are easily searchable.

Getting the most from your computer is about more than just having a super-charged machine to run the latest software at blazing speeds. Efficiencies come from knowing all the ins, outs, and shortcuts to the systems you use and finding the best way to issue commands for them to execute.

Keeping your feet on the ground and your head out of the clouds has long been sound business and general advice. However, these days there seems to be endless talk of the numerous benefits of sending things to the clouds.

I can still remember the first time I came across a computer mouse when a childhood friend was showing me the brand new Apple Macintosh computer in the corner of his family’s kitchen. Sure, I’d grown up in a house where there was always at least one machine, but our tan and brown Commodore 64 was text controlled, forcing me to quickly learn both rudimentary typing and the basic commands in order to use the computer on my own. So when I encountered that pixilated cursor and the new concept of pointing and clicking, I was completely blown away.

Some magicians have been known to amaze crowds with a trick where it appears they are catching bullets with their teeth. However, the tooth marks found on a 200-year-old musket ball on display at The Dr. Samuel D. Harris National Museum of Dentistry, on loan from Kathy Lee Erlandson, are more likely to have come from a wounded soldier than a showman from two centuries ago. “Apparently there’s some credence to the ‘bite the bullet’ for pain kind of thing,” said Museum Curator Dr. Scott Swank.

The search for a practice management software application that fits your practice’s needs can be a tricky endeavor. With a wide range of options ready to handle your scheduling, billing, patient records and more, it’s important to make the right choice because this will be the central hub for all of your practice’s information.

The potential for new design and production technologies to reshape the dental laboratory industry is certainly real. When combined with developments in materials, new technologies can be leveraged to increase capacity, achieve efficiencies and even increase the accuracy of the restorations fabricated by American dental laboratories.

There are numerous moving parts-sometimes literally-involved with creating a high quality dental restoration. Working with technologies, tools and materials that are designed to work together can make that process a little less complex.

The number of patients seeking therapy for snoring and sleep apnea has increased by 60% in the past decade, making sleep dentistry a profitable new practice driver for doctors and one of the fastest growing segments in dentistry today. According to the American Academy of Sleep Medicine, oral appliance therapy is first line treatment for snoring and mild to moderate sleep apnea.