Who Seems to Fear it More, the Clinical or Administrative Teams?

Ok, so I am going to date myself now and my hope is that my dental contemporaries out there are not shy to chime in.

Remember when x-rays required dipping tanks? We’d go into the small (very small) darkroom and carefully unwrap each x-ray taking care not to touch the film with our hands. If we were developing a full series we would clip them methodically to the rack and carefully dip the x-rays into the developer. We would slowly be sure to cover the tank so that no light streamed in, set our timer and slithered out of this tiny space. Usually we didn’t have to even wait for the buzzer to go off since we were so accustomed to this “drill” that knowing when the films were ready was instinctive.

We would then go in, dip the films in the water and place them in the fixer tank. This routine was repeated throughout the day and all of us on the clinical team worked together throughout the process. Boy, was that developer/fixer dangerous stuff! No matter how careful we were it was not unusual to get it on our uniforms (that were always white by the way). There were no other choices in colors and they were dresses! That’s right, no pants, no scrubs, no options.

Then came the birth of the Automatic Processor. It was a huge change for us, but we did adjust rather quickly and effortlessly. I believe that it was such a vast improvement to what we had before–damaging our clothes and staining our hands. That’s right, no one wore gloves back then or masks either for that matter.

This transition was really a pleasure and I can clearly remember my practice mates rejoicing as to how much cleaner and more efficient this new method was. It saved us time too, since the process was much faster than the old traditional way. There were lots of smiling faces walking the halls of the Medical/Dental Building I worked in on Long Island–happiness everywhere!

Of course, since then we have graduated to digital x-rays, intraoral cameras and a myriad of other technical advancements. For some reason, the changes that were developed for the clinical side of the practice appeared to be much more readily accepted than the improvements that were made to the Business Office. I don’t know why, and perhaps my assessment is not accurate but I can distinctly remember the fear that came over the administrative side of the practice when the peg board system was replaced by THE COMPUTER!

I can clearly recall one of my fellow front desk buddies refused to let go of the “One-Write” system and would enter her information both in the computer and on paper. “I’m terrified of losing information. Where does this all go? What happens if the computer breaks?” (crashing wasn’t even in our vocabulary back then). And if this wasn’t scary enough, what about replacing the Appointment Book with the computer? OH NO! This was frightening to the Business Team AND the doctor.

Technical transition can either make us or break us, at least this is how we felt. How many practices would you say continued to maintain both a computer version of the schedule and a hard-copy appointment book version? From what I observed, I would say perhaps 85-90% initially.

No secret that dental peeps fear change, but I have noticed that the advancements on the clinical side of a practice do not seem to rattle team members quite as much as advancements within the front desk. I’m really not sure why, but there seemed to be a little more resistance when it came to enhancing systems that pertained to the business office.

Of course, now in this day and age everyone is working with lots of technology. I can honestly say that with the hundreds of practices that I have worked with over the years, I don’t know of one that is not computerized—well for the most part anyway. There are still a number of practices that have slowly migrated to a paperless practice. As a matter of fact, as recently as 3 months ago I worked onsite with a practice that was actually making clinical notes in the paper charts as well as documenting all information in the computer.

I’d be interested to hear from you regarding your thoughts on the difference between the clinical side of the office and the administrative side. Do you feel one department is somewhat more resistant to changes than the other? The administrative team is often gun-shy with the possibility of more work, fear of crashes, and they “don’t have the time”. Whereas the clinical team often welcomes advancements and enjoys challenges.