17. Does your practice engage in social media such as Facebook, internet sites, text messages, etc.?
Because of my small sample size, I am representing a majority of the questions by simple analysis through text but will include graphs based on the technology that the dentists had in the work place along with the "ease" (#7) of their technology and importance of having up to date technology in their office (#15).
Among the six dentists that I interviewed, the mean of the years being in practice was 26.8 years. (n=28, 32, 28, 36, 7, and 30 years of practice). In the same order, I will be regarding them as "Dr. A, Dr. B, Dr. D, Dr. R, Dr. C, and Dr. Q". The outlier was the dentist who had been younger in comparison to the rest of the dentists and had only been in practice for 7 years. When asked how many of their peers or colleagues could say they had the same technology as them, only 33% (2 out of 6) dentists said they knew of others that had the same technology while the remainder responded that "they didn't know". When asked if they believed there was a difference in age or location regarding the technology in dental practices, they all had agreed that age was a paramount factor. The majority response was summed up by "Dr. Q" who is quoted, "The younger dentists tend to work with what they have when they start out, but once they get enough income, they are faster to purchase the more up to date technology." This was reassured by "Dr. C" who was the youngest dentist, saying that "he purchased digital x-rays as soon as he could cover the higher expense". As far as demographics, "Dr. Q" also mentioned that "bigger cities tend to have more advanced technology than smaller cities", which ended up summing up the rest of the dental professionals' answers.
All of the dentists besides "Dr. A, C, and D" had the same technology since they had started their own practice. While Drs. A, C, and D had digital x-ray and technology, Drs. B, R, and Q still had traditional x-ray machines and used films to examine teeth. All of them had the smaller sensors to put in the patients mouth in order to obtain an x-ray. The average costs of the sensors (according to the dentists interviewed) was $10,000 a piece and ranged from having 4-6 in the office. The dentists with traditional x-ray machines and x-ray developers said that their machines ranged from $50,000-60,000. The dentists who had digital x-ray machines along with the software reported that the average relative cost ranged from $100,000-130,000. For both technologies there were required maintenance and replacement fees (for traditional x-rays there was a required monthly maintenance fee of around $2,000 along with replacement of ink and films, a $1,000 fee), while the digital x-ray machines required very little uptake. Only one of the three had a person come in within the last 6 months for a part to be fixed. Dr. Q had mentioned that he had an x-ray film generator that went 12 years without any problems and the only reason he bought another generator was for the dental hygienists in the office to have one in a separate room.
Figure 2. Percentage of Dentists with Certain X-Ray Technology
I found that although all of the dentists agreed that having digital X-ray technology had far more advantages such as the ability to see things more clearer, the computer system is much faster and convenient than the traditional x-ray film generators, and it was much more compatible (able to email them to other dentists if need be), the three that didn't have the digital machines did not see themselves upgrading before they retired. When asked why, all three respondents said that it was too expensive and that they were happy with the traditional X-ray technology that they had in their office.
When asked the "ease" of using their technology the responses from the dentists are shown below in figure 3.
Figure 3. Percentage of Dentists Responses Regarding Ease of Technology
While a majority of the responses were very easy, the only "easy" response came from Dr. Q, who had still used traditional X-rays. The reason he said for this was "because he doesn't have as up-to-date sensors that most dentists have and they are "bulgy"...it is often harder for patients to deal with a bigger sensor". Dr. R mentioned to me that before he bought smaller sensors, one patient refused to get X-rays because the large sensor triggered a gag reflex, "that's when I knew I had to purchase smaller sensors" regarded Dr. R. The dentists who had digital X-ray technology all responded that it was "very easy" to use but on the contrary, the dentists who had the digital X-ray devices rated adaptability on a scale of 1-5 (1 being easy, 5 being hard) all "3's", "there is definitely a learning curve to the computer software" mentioned Dr. A. The traditional X-ray dentists all mentioned that adaptability was a 1 because that's what they were taught in dental school.
Out of all the dentists that I interviewed, only one, the younger Dr. C said that having personal up to date technology was important to him. He was the only one out of all of the other dentists to have a Facebook page for his practice. While the others believed that it was important and recognized that using social media was vital to a growing client and business rate, none of them used these resources. Dr. D has said that "he knows that other dentists are starting to make websites for their practice or use Facebook to advertise, but he doesn't do it because he does not know how". I believe that the reason for all but one of the dentists not feeling that the use of social media and websites is important is because they already have had an established practice for years and don't feel the need to reach out towards a complicated part of the social sphere.
When I asked the respondents about how important it was to have up-to-date technology in their practice, the majority said "very important". All but one dentist, Dr. Q, responded that he didn't think it was that important. The reason was actually mentioned by every single dentist I had interviewed and I had not mentioned or hinted the following to them: They ALL mentioned on their own that no matter what technology a dentist has, it comes down to the dental professional's demeanor and quality of work in regards to cliental and business. As Dr. D mentioned "if your a dentist who has the best technology around the whole state but you don't have a friendly/caring personality and don't do the job to the best of your ability...having that technology is pointless. It is all relative to the dental professionals' actions on how successful they are in their practice".
