From the field

Five IT mistakes dental offices still make

Over 15 years the list does not change much. The software names do. The pain in the operatory does not.

  1. Hiring general IT. They know Windows. They do not know Dentrix, Eaglesoft, or Open Dental. Fixes take longer. Downtime costs more than the cheaper hourly rate.

  2. Assuming backups work. Offices find out at ransomware or a dead drive. If you have not restored, you are guessing.

  3. Soft security. One shared login, old antivirus, no MFA. That is not “we’re a small office.” That is an open door.

  4. No disaster plan. Server dies — hours or days? Who has the cloud password? Who calls the imaging vendor?

  5. Growing into a wall. Another operatory, another office, same 2016 switch and a VPN from a home-router guide.

Dentistry is not a real-estate office with a printer. The IT partner has to know the clinical software, the sensors, and the compliance shape of the data. That is the work we do in Lacey and Olympia.

See if this is your list