Every dental assistant out there is more than familiar with the “Doctor hand-wash”. You each start washing your hands at the same time and by time you are drying and turn around the Doctor is already gloved and looking at you with that “any day now” look. Now that I am the Doctor I have not perfected the “Doctor hand-wash” and still find myself sitting there singing the “Happy Birthday” song twice while I wash. Purell’s healthcare line is out to help people like me speed up the disinfection of both hands and surfaces with their Advanced line of hand sanitizer, healthy soap, and surface disinfectant.
Here at the Dental Advisor, we recently received three of Purell Healthcare’s (GOJO Industries) products: PURELL Healthcare Advanced Hand Sanitizer ULTRA NOURISHING™ Foam, PURELL Healthcare Surface Disinfectant, and PURELL Healthcare CRT HEALTHY SOAP High Performance Foam. These products are all designed to effectively kill common bacteria and viruses found in healthcare settings while being healthy for skin and the environment.
Purell Healthy Soap
Foaming soap
Very luxurious soap
Purell Advanced Hand Sanitizer
Foaming hand sanitizer
Thin, easy to spread foam
All products including surface disinfectant
Surface Disinfectant
Surface disinfectant foams as it is sprayed
What were the Initial Insights of the Dental Advisor team and our editorial board? – We like the foaming quality of all three products. – The hand sanitizer had a strong alcohol smell at first, but it dissipated quickly and left no residual smell. – The soap is a very nice thick foam. We had mixed opinions on if it was drying on hands or not between the Dental Advisor team. We cannot wait to see what the evaluators’ consensus was! – I felt like I needed two pumps of the hand sanitizer to effectively keep my hands wet for 15 seconds (required kill time).
What do our Clinical Evaluators and their patients think about this product once it’s used in their offices? Look for our clinical evaluation in an upcoming issue!
I have to admit, I am a bit of a mirror snob. We all have our pet peeves as practitioners and one of mine is poor quality mirrors. My assistants actually just kept a box of new mirror heads in each of my treatment rooms so that whenever I would start to whine they could do the quick change out! If you think about it though, visualization is critical in our profession. We spend thousands of dollars on loupes and headlights, yet a lot of us don’t think twice when our assistant hands us that size 4 mirror that is scratched and has that weird iridescent coating on it (you know… the one that only seems to come off with an alcohol wipe). It just gets to the point where many of us just accept that the mirror is the weak link in our visualization. Fortunately, Hu-Friedy is out to try and change that and make our mouth mirrors one of our best assets.
Here at the Dental Advisor we recently received the HD Black Line Mirrors (Hu-Friedy). According to the manufacturer these mirrors feature a DIAMOND LIKE CARBON (DLC) COATING that reduces glare by up to 80% and creates a distinct contrast between the instrument, the tooth and/or the surrounding tissue. They also feature superior brilliance and color for quicker and more accurate visibility of the mouth.
113% reflection factor for exceptional image clarity.
38.5% brighter than rhodium coated mirror glass.
50% brighter than other front surface mirror glass.
HD Mirror with black coating
HD Mirrors, double-sided to the left and single-sided to the right
Backside of double-sided mirror
Standard cone socket mirror vs HD mirror head
Standard mirror view
HD Mirror view
What were the Initial Insights of the Dental Advisor team? – The flat neck of these mirrors is a wonderful idea! Especially with the addition of the extra bend in the double-sided mirror aiding in retraction. – You wouldn’t think the black surface would make much of a difference but we found the lack of glare quite noticeable. – We want to see for ourselves how the scratch-resistant coating holds up during an evaluation period. – This is a very well thought out mirror with lot of details all designed to improve clinical outcomes. – In this initial use of the HD mirror, I felt like little details were noticeably more defined.
What do our Clinical Evaluators and their patients think about this product once it’s used in their offices? Look for a possible clinical evaluation in an upcoming issue!
There are certain procedures that make me thankful for having smaller hands. Trying to hand tighten or loosen healing caps in the posterior is definitely one of them. Even the short hex driver never seems short enough by time I get it straight, put my finger on top to stabilize it and get, what feels like, my entire hand in their mouth to start turning the driver… enter the Stretch Implant Driver.
Here at the Dental Advisor,we recently received the S T R E T C H™ Implant Driver (Master Dental Inc.). According to the manufacturer the S T R E T C H™ Implant Driver allows you to remove and place cover screws and healing abutments in all areas of the mouth safely and with good vision. It is especially useful in the posterior regions of the mouth, allowing you direct vision of the cover screw, abutment screw or healing abutment when placing or removing it. Advantages include:
Treatment time is greatly reduced
Quicker than using small hex screw by hand
Improved visibility
U-type contra angle attachment
Remove and place cover screws, healing abutments, and abutment
Manually rotate to turn hex driver. Can rotate left or right.
Stretch Implant Driver is 8 inches in length.
Superb access to the posterior and no fingers in the way of visibility.
What were the Initial Insights of the Dental Advisor team and our editorial board? – We love these kind of simple innovations that make everyday procedures go that much smoother and more predictable. – Love the thinness of this, maximizing visibility. – Will you have to stabilize the head for maxillary implants, reducing your visibility? We want to evaluate this product to find out!!
What do our Clinical Evaluators and their patients think about this product once it’s used in their offices? Look for a possible clinical evaluation in an upcoming issue!
The public health clinic I worked at did not want to invest in intraoral cameras while I was there. I could not get them to see the game-changing treatment planning potential in showing the patients their own mouth. So, I decided to buy a reasonably priced camera myself (on Amazon mind you) to use in my operatories and maybe show my superiors it would be worth the investment for a fancier model. Holy cow… talk about a nightmare! I imagined I would plug it in, the computer would download the drivers, I would open the intraoral camera button in Dentrix and I would be good to go…. nope. Nothing integrated, it had it’s own software but trying to get the images into the patient’s chart was a ton of steps my assistant did not want to bother with, and the images were definitely affected by the plastic sheath. We never got it going and it became a decoration on the shelf rather than the powerful treatment planning tool I had envisioned… enter Lensiora.
We recently received the Lensiora Camera (Lensiora), here at the Dental Advisor. According to the manufacturers this camera is capable of displaying video and capturing images at the highest resolution currently available on the market: 1600 by 1200 pixels with outstanding image quality. This camera is very affordable at up to 4x’s less than cameras with similar image quality! Additionally, they claim that their proprietary software does a few things that no other camera on the market can do. In Eaglesoft, Schick DICOM, Dentrix and many other dental imaging applications it configures the dental imaging application to see the camera and select it (compared to up to 20 step installation procedures for other cameras). Clicking one single button on the camera, while in the patient chart, it will launch the dental imaging module and display the video stream. Subsequent clicks will take snapshots and save them in the patient chart with no need to use the mouse, which saves valuable chair time.
Lensiora Intraoral Camera – USB
Capture button on underside
Controls on top side of camera
Image taken with Lensiora
Image taken with Lensiora at 10mm distance
Image taken with competitor (that costs 3-4xs more) at 10mm
What were the Initial Insights of the Dental Advisor team and our editorial board? – Incredibly simple set up. – Great clarity of images. – One of our editorial board dentists, that is computer savvy, integrated this into his daily work flow and loves it… what will a more diverse group of practitioners think? – Images look great even through the sleeve. – Easy integration into the one program we looked at. – Super bright light illuminates area well; however, in our initial look it showed light reflection in the images too.
What do our Clinical Evaluators and their patients think about this product once it’s used in their offices? Look for a possible clinical evaluation in an upcoming issue!
Dental Advisor would like to give a special Thank You to Dr. Anthony Valentine, Ann Arbor, MI for photos and Initial Insights sent to the manufacturer on this camera.
As a right handed operator, I never look forward to seeing the dreaded #15B or even worse… #16B! When I walk in the room, my assistant has every kind of cheek retraction device humanly possible laid out in a row on the top of the mobile cart and is pumping blood into her arm, preparing to battle the cheek. The mirror just cannot ever seem to retract enough; especially when the cheek just flops around the mirror handle.
We recently received the Mirror Buddy (Master Dental Inc.) here at the Dental Advisor. We love these kind of products. A dentist who deals with our challenges day in and day out invented a great solution! According to the manufacturer Mirror Buddy is “An autoclavable mirror cushion redefined”. The Mirror Buddy is made of highly transparent silicone that allows you improved viewing and access to the the mouth. Designed for maximum comfort for your patients.
Highly transparent medical grade silicone
Provides improved viewing area
Allows improved access to the mouth
Gentle on oral commissures when retracted
Fits standard size cone docket dental mirrors
What were the Initial Insights of the Dental Advisor team and our editorial board? – When I put this in the hands of one of Dr. Bunek’s hygienists she would not give it up! She kept calling everyone over to see how well she could retract the cheek with it. – Extends your retraction area when dealing with a large tongue as well as cheeks. – Very comfortable to our patient. – A little tricky to get on the mirror handle at first, but the nice part is that it is autoclavable, so you do not have to take it off. – We wonder how long the silicone will be able to last after repeated autoclaving.
What do our Clinical Evaluators and their patients think about this product once it’s used in their offices? Look for a possible clinical evaluation in an upcoming issue!
Administering palatal anesthesia is a necessary evil that I always dread. As you can imagine, working in public health means I have done a lot of maxillary extractions. Knowing I have to give that palatal anesthesia always makes the sweat start beading before we even get started. I want to make my patients comfortable, but my arsenal of tips and tricks for making palatal anesthesia less painful has never been very extensive or effective.
At Dental Advisor, we recently received the Palatal Anesthesia Device (Master Dental Inc.). This instrument uses the principle of applying pressure to the area, that we have all done with a mirror handle, but makes it more effective. According to the manufacturer the Palatal Anesthesia Device uses the principles of pressure anesthesia and the “gate control theory of pain” to alleviate the pain associated with a palatal injection. The stimulation of the surface tactile receptors by the instrument “opens the gate” of the pain-transmitting fibers and interrupts their transmission to the brain. Therefore, the pain associated with the initial needle penetration is greatly reduced.
The “C” shape allows for targeted pressure right at the injection site
The targeted pressure blanches the injection site very effectively
What were the Initial Insights of the Dental Advisor team and our editorial board? – Great idea! – Takes a proven method for pain reduction and makes it more efficient. – It takes very little pressure with this instrument to get the tissue to blanch. – Not just a good instrument to have on hand for an office that does a lot of palatal anesthesia but maybe even better for the offices that do it rarely and have not perfected a technique for pain reduction during palatal anesthesia. – We want to test this to see how effective it is… is it worth another instrument on my tray?
What do our Clinical Evaluators and their patients think about this product once it’s used in their offices? Look for a possible clinical evaluation in an upcoming issue!
