Tag: Dental Surgeons

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Dental Practice

Dental Practice Management- Strategy

Dental Surgery is a key part of the healthcare ecosystem. If you look at it closely we see that most of the health and wellness starts from digestion and the entire process of digestion starts from the mouth. Dental Surgeons play a very critical part of the ecosystem.

I took some time last week to put out a series of videos to help dentists to relook at their practice and their clinic. Here is a brief highlight on the first in the series- Strategy.

Strategy is a key to a successful business, a dental clinic is no different. The first step is

  1. Think Local, Act Local – It is important for the dentist to look at his local ecosystem, and understand the people that live in 2-5 KM radius of the clinic. Attention needs to be paid to their demographics, Age , Gender and Lifestyle.
  2. What Dental Services Would they Need- The next step is to extrapolate what services these communities would need. For example if there are many senior citizens living in that area, they may need more of Prosthodontic services.
  3. Finally Are you in a position to provide those services?- This is a critical step. If the demand is there but you are unable to supply it then it is best to look at another area. The services should be close to your core competency and your ability to provide them will be the key to success.

Please do let me know your your thoughts and ideas and I will be happy to respond to them. I will be sharing a lot more of my thoughts on topic in subsequent posts.

Categories
Healthcare Technology

The second annual India social media dental report coming soon

Last year we had surveyed more than 100 dentists in India, mostly from the metros. Based on the responses we had released a report, that was published by the Indian Dental Association in their newsletter. We are very excited to announce that we have completed the surveys this tear as well and will be publishing our report in January 2018. In the run up to that, we thought it would be a good idea to revisit some of the findings from last year.

According to a survey report, we found that Dental practitioners are reluctant adopters of social media for professional use. While 90% of survey respondents said they used social media for personal use, only 63% indicated that they used it for professional purposes such as connecting with peers (70%), raising awareness of their practice (61%) and educating patients (51%).

With the government of India’s healthcare policy emphasizing on preventive healthcare, medical practitioners and hospitals have to find new ways to reach and educate patients to stay healthy. In this context, social media can be a game changer, especially for specialist care providers such as dental surgeons, ophthalmologists, dermatologists and ENT specialists.

The survey report, possibly the first of its kind in India, outlined possible reasons for low social media adoption as ranging from limited understanding of social media; lack of skills needed to create compelling content on social media; uncertainty around how regulatory bodies such as the Indian Dental Association perceive social media use; and absence of well-known peers using social media.

We have seen interest from dentists to use social media for professional purposes. But the rigors of running a practice means they seldom have the time to invest in familiarizing themselves with this medium.

Other salient findings of the report include the following:

  • The top social media platforms used by respondents for professional work include Twitter, LinkedIn, and Blogs (in that order)
  • 42% of respondents spent an average of one to five hours a week on social media pertaining to work. About 33% spent less than an hour a week.
  • Only 28% of respondents had a budget for investing in social media activities

According to the report, social media can be used to educate, promote, interact and advise patients. To this effect, the report also includes a section on five commonly asked questions and actionable insights to help medical practitioners build their social media presence credibly.

To download the report, please click here and learn other key findings and stay tuned for the launch of the 2018 report.

 

Categories
Healthcare Delivery

Introducing Dental Photography by Dr Mayur Davda

Dental Photography is an emerging area of art and science. As of today Dental Photography has more than 50 different applications. Some of them include documentation, marketing, shade selection, scientific presentations, sharing cases with your peers, medico legal, forensics etc. just to name a few. This is the exact reason why every dentist MUST embrace dental photography into the daily practice.

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Categories
Healthcare Delivery

Dentists in India Take to Social Media

Social media continues to influence the manner in which we communicate with people, forge relationships, form opinions and respond to situations on a daily basis.  Not only is it used to maintain one’s personal social network, but platforms like Facebook and Twitter have compelled enterprises, be they large, medium or small, to take their existing and prospective consumers seriously and engage with them.

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