Dental practices face unique IT challenges that general IT providers often struggle to address. Grow Community partner, 32 Byte, offers specialist IT services to support the specific needs of Australian dental practice owners. We sat down with 32 Byte’s Managing Director, Mike Collishaw, to discuss in a two-part series why it might be time to upgrade your IT services provider.

When it comes to IT, dental practices come with a unique set of challenges that many tech support providers are either not willing or capable of supporting.

When Mike Collishaw first started working with dental practices over a decade ago, he said he was shocked by how poorly things were done from an IT perspective.

“It’s a peculiar sector and many businesses in our space don’t want to take on dental practices as clients because it’s hard,” Mike says.

In most other business environments, like accounting or legal firms, employees typically have similar laptops that use 10-15 standard software applications, and the most complex equipment to be found is a printer.

It’s a completely different scenario with dental practices. A single practice might have five or six different brands of imaging equipment, each with its own specific software chosen from a pool of 300-400 different software options.

“No other industry I can think has this level of complexity, except for maybe radiology and veterinary practices - there’s a lot that can go wrong inside a dental practice,” says Mike.

The most common IT challenges dental practices face

32 Byte sees consistent problems with standardised systems like practice management software not communicating with other systems properly, and simple issues like Outlook not sending emails, computers and Eftpos terminals not working.

“Those kinds of general IT issues are common and easy to fix, but the real difficulty comes with the unique challenges that dentists often face,” Mike says.

For example, imagine an intraoral scanner that needs to travel between rooms but requires a specific type of Wi-Fi connection, or needs to connect back to a hosted device that isn't part of a communicated network so you can't see those images on another computer once they're taken.

“In those scenarios IT can get complex very quickly and most general IT companies will simply tell you to contact the software developer because they don't know how to fix these specialist issues,” says Mike.

The risks of not getting your IT systems right

When it comes to understanding the risks of not getting the right IT infrastructure and systems in place, Mike says there are two lenses to look through. From a hardware standpoint, general IT companies may not put in the right equipment because they don't understand the specific requirements. For example, the devices used for imaging need to be very particular, and if they're slightly wrong, the imaging won't work properly.

“We've seen practices spend $15,000 on servers that we've had to replace because they were completely inadequate,” Mike said.

From a data perspective and cyber security point-of-view, general IT providers often don't understand the legislation around data security and privacy in dental practices. For instance, Australian privacy laws prohibit storing patient or clinical data overseas, but services like Dropbox and Google Drive automatically duplicate data overseas as a backup. By using these services without proper security measures, practices are technically breaking the law.

The financial and operational costs

One of the most common things 32 Byte sees when they start working with a new client and take over from another IT company is that systems haven’t been set up properly.

“There’s a time and effort loss for the practice in that,” says Mike. “In a five-chair dental practice, each chair might generate $350-500 per hour. If you're earning $1,750 per hour across five chairs and your server goes offline for an hour every Monday morning (which happens more often than you'd think), that's $1,700 lost every week.”

Highlighting other potential inefficiencies, Mike points out that many practices have computers that are five years old and running slowly.

“If a dentist spends 15 minutes writing notes after each appointment when it could take just five minutes with proper equipment, that's 10 minutes lost per patient. Over a full day of appointments, this adds up to significant lost productivity and revenue,” Mike said.

Whether it’s the cost of downtime, compliance risks, or inefficient systems, the true price of inadequate IT support adds up quickly. In part 2 we explore how to shift your mindset around IT – seeing it as a smart investment - and what to expect from a consultation with a provider who truly understands the needs of dental practices.

Grow Community gives you more

• If you're a dental professional who values expert support and practical solutions tailored to your needs, becoming a Grow Community member ensures you’re connected to partners who genuinely understand your world. From exclusive offers to specialist services designed for your practice, Grow opens the door to a trusted network working to help you succeed.
  
  Special offer for Grow Community Members:
  
  Sign up for 32 Byte's managed service agreement and receive your first month free^*.
  
  Ranging from the technical setup of equipment to developing a full IT strategy for your business, 32 Byte’s services include:
• • - Connectivity (phones and internet)
    - Physical devices (computers, hardware, etc)
    - Cybersecurity (endpoint agents, managed security operations centres, firewalls)
    - Billing (Microsoft invoicing, licensing)
    - Managed IT services.

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