From the Desk of Abbas Mohammadi, DDS

Technology has made an incredible difference to my practice (Columbia Dental) since I opened in 2000.    When I began practicing, I used paper charts and film x-rays.  This required storage space for the charts and a darkroom to develop the x-rays.

This was all highly inefficient.  Technology had allowed for the development of electronic dental records, which I began using.  I had to wait 2 more years for radiology technology to catch up and integrate into the practice management system along with the sensors required to translate the radiation beam into digitized pictures.   Finally, an integrated dental record with clinical notes, billing and radiographs accessible at the click of a mouse.  This simplifies things for me, as a provider, and for you, the patient, to have everything accessible.

The next step, as I opened more offices, was to have a shared database, tying the patients into a single database that no matter which office one was seen in, the file could be accessed from any office.  This dream was finally realized in 2015 when we transitioned from Patterson Eaglesoft to Dentrix Enterprise.  Until 2015 each office had to have their own server which contained the patient electronic dental record along with the x-rays.  The exciting piece of Dentrix Enterprise was this practice management system was a single database located on a remote server (cloud) that had all the demographics, the complete billing record, and the clinical notes for each patient.  The only separate piece were the radiographs which were still located in each individual office.

In 2020 the technology was finally available to tie the radiology to the practice management system into a cohesive, integrated program stored on the remote servers and accessible by all the offices and the centralized billing office.  This made referrals extremely efficient as the doctor is able to see the entire history of the patient while at Columbia Dental and now with the radiographs and the continuity of care is complete.

This upgrade to our record technology has made the protection of your data better and easier.  The offices are all tied together through our internal network which includes the telephone system and the practice management ties together to the cloud-based servers in the integrated database.  Your information is protected through stringent networking security and the best practices in encryption and both change and configuration management.

The technological advancements don’t stop with the computers, network, and integrated practice management system.  Advancements have also been made in our own digital dental laboratory.  We are able to design, fabricate and insert the dental prosthetics built for your teeth such as crowns, bridges and dentures.  We have the ability to design and fabricate whole arches of teeth to be set on implants, permanently placing them in your mouth to be the equivalent of the teeth you were born with, permanently secured like your original.  No need for denture adhesive, they won’t fall out, and you can enjoy all the foods you desire.

As technology allows for efficiencies in my practice it also benefits you with what we are able to do to assist you in your oral health.