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New, Open Opportunities Through Straumann® CARES® Digital Solutions
Digital dentistry is constantly evolving, and there are numerous systems and technologies available to improve the clinical workflow for practitioners. However, how does one determine which is the optimal system for his or her practice? For Marcus Abboud, DDS, the answer is simple: "You can have the best system in the world, but it's literally worthless if you don't have the service you need," he asserts.
For this reason, he recommends Straumann® CARES® Digital Solutions, which range from digital impression-taking using intraoral scanning, to the computerized production of prosthetics using state-of-the-art CAM processing. Each step in this workflow is designed to seamlessly interlock with the next, ensuring high quality throughout the digital workflow.
"What I really like about Straumann is that the company not only has the products, but it also provides the support," Abboud explains. He sees Straumann as very open-minded because the company allows its products to integrate with different products from other companies, in essence embracing an open environment/open system. "Whatever you need, they have it. When combining that together with the service, there is no better alternative," he continues.
Abboud's appreciation for Straumann's flexibility also stems from his current work at the University of Kentucky. Over the past couple of years, he has played a major role in transforming its dental program into a fully digital operation. Therefore, his goals include educating students on this technology and sending them out into dental offices being fully digitally efficient.
"As an educational institution, we have even more needs than a regular dentist. Digital workflows work fairly well in the dental office, but real problems may come into play when you try to scale it up-I think this is where the DSOs and academic institutions are struggling," Abboud says.
In his opinion, this is where Straumann shines. The company worked with him and his staff to incorporate updates into the software to make it all work together optimally. "That is the exact right attitude, and it helped us a lot," he explains. "Instead of saying ‘we cannot help you, our software cannot do that right now,' they made it work. That is a significant advantage."
In addition, the clinical benefits of utilizing this system are numerous. "It opens up completely new opportunities because we do a lot of implant restorations, and now we can have a restoration ready before surgery. And if you are using a guide, for example, you can pre-plan a complete restoration and have a prefabricated long-term provisional on the table even before you place the implant. So, the more you have digital technologies networked together, the more powerful clinical solutions you get."
According to the manufacturer, Straumann CARES Digital Solutions connect carefully selected, efficient dental equipment with the latest digital technology and premium materials to provide a seamless, open, and fully validated digital workflow for dental professionals. Straumann CARES Digital Solutions include digital impression scanners, model scanners, CAD/CAM software, design services, mills, centralized milling, and a leading range of Straumann CARES prosthetic materials to match daily and special prosthetic case requirements.
For Abboud, digital technology is not so much about being a tool or instrument for the dentist, rather the interesting aspect to him is the clinical solutions that digital workflows can provide to the dentist. "There are quite a few solutions that really benefit from digital workflows. For example, aligner technology or guided surgery solutions with prefabricated restorations-these are hard to do in a regular analog environment. This is where digital really shines. I can customize everything perfectly to the patient," he says.
"With digital dentistry we are able to obtain new clinical solutions that we've never had before. Straumann understands this and is significantly contributing to the dentist. This adds a lot of value for the practice," he concludes.
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