When thinking about the right dental equipment for your office, you want it to fulfil two fundamental roles. First, you should ensure you’ve got everything to do top-notch dentistry work.
Second, you should consider how you arrange all the stuff in your practice. The goal here is to create an ambient your patients will enjoy. (To the maximum extent possible because, well, they’re seeing a dentist.)
Now, the exact equipment you need depends on the layout and size of your dental practice. However, some things are an absolute must for every dentist.
Let’s go analyze such equipment and guide you through what to look for when getting it.
Dental Chair
Making sure that your dental chair is comfortable for both you and your patients is an obvious place to start. You need to be able to keep a healthy posture while easily performing any procedure. Another thing to look at is the chair’s width. While wider chairs offer more comfort to your patients, they can make reaching them more challenging.
Now, for your patients’ comfort, it’s essential that your dental chair provides good support and cushioning, whatever their size. So, finding a chair with adjustable positioning that adapts to your patient’s body is big plus comfort-wise.
On top of comfort, your dental chair needs to be functional and easy to use. Nowadays, chairs come with an intuitive and easily accessible control panel to help you cover even the tiniest positioning aspects.
Lastly, don’t forget to take aesthetics into consideration. Your dental chair is usually the first thing patients notice in your office, so make sure it looks elegant and fits into your décor.
Lighting
As you probably know, to perform any procedure with impeccable accuracy, great lighting is a must. So, your lights need to ensure both general visibility and allow you to see clearly into the patient’s mouth. Focused and bright halogen and LED lighting should do the trick.
On the other hand, you can use soft lighting in your reception area and waiting room. Also, make sure you have some natural light in your dental practice. It gives a comfortable and approachable vibe to the space.
Cabinetry
Supplies and small devices are what make a dental office tick. Keep your cabinets simple and easy to access (clean, open, and close). Also, make sure you have dedicated cabinets for storing consumable items, such as gloves and gauze.
X-Ray Equipment
In today’s world, almost every dental office uses digital X-ray technology to correctly diagnose and treat patients. In a nutshell, an X-ray machine and its add-ons let you store images and immediately show patients where their issue lies on a computer screen.
Handpieces
You’ll use handpieces in virtually every procedure, whether routine or specialized. So, it’s essential to have the correct ones for each intervention you offer.
Now, there’s a humongous amount of handpieces to choose from, with models operating at different speeds and made for multiple or just a single purpose. Choose the ones that best fit your needs.
Sterilization Equipment
You are going to want to prevent cross-contamination in your dental practice, so sterilizers are a must. The most important piece of sterilizing equipment is an autoclave. It’s designed to use either pressurized steam or heat to perform the sterilization.
On top of autoclaves, you should get regular and high-grade disinfectants and cleaning supplies.
Consumables
Any procedure that may involve spray and splatter (and most do) requires your staff to use consumables such as surgical masks, gloves, and eye shields. Make sure you stock up on enough consumables to keep your practice running smoothly.
Scrubs
Not only do scrubs serve a medical purpose, but you can also use them to create a unique look and feel for your dental practice. Think about setting aside a budget and laying out design details for your employees’ scrubs.
Utility Equipment
Utility equipment is the “back office” of your dental practice that makes sure everything runs smoothly. The concrete utility equipment you need depends on your processes, but it usually involves dental compressors, vacuums, separation tanks, utility control centres, etc.
IT Equipment
It goes without saying you need to digitalize everything in your dental practice. Your IT system must facilitate communication and store every piece of patient data. Many dental offices go as far as offering specialized tablets through which patients enter their info directly into the system — instead of using pen and paper.
Waiting Room
You want to build your dental office as a unique brand people come back to. Any type of design (sleek and modern or traditional) and additional features (pastimes for kids and grownups) will do the trick, as long as they help create an aura of empathy, trust, and comfort.
Plan Your Equipment Purchases to Ensure Success
To have a smoothly running dental practice, you want to make sure that, on top of the equipment that should last you several years, you have a steady influx of high-quality and cost-effective dental supplies.
In other words, having a reliable supplier is the key to frictionless day-to-day functioning. Your best bet might be to partner with a well-known supplier who can cover all your dental supply needs, such as Kent Express.
To sum up, you want to create a dental equipment purchase process that’s fast and completely predictable. This ensures you and your staff focus on the most important thing — keeping your patients satisfied, so they always come back to you.
