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Howard Speaks Howard Farran, DDS, MAGD, MBA, Publisher, Dentaltown Magazine

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Partly Cloudy
– by Howard Farran, DDS, MAGD, MBA, Publisher, Dentaltown Magazine

In the late 1870s, Thomas Edison improved upon the light bulb. Up to that point, the best lighting technology people had was a gas lamp, which was plagued with various drawbacks. Sure gas lamps produced decent illumination, but they left black soot all over the walls and ceiling, sometimes they'd catch fire, and every once in a while gas from a lamp might fill up in a room and explode – logical reasons why the public really liked the idea of electricity. The primary drawback to the electric lamp was it needed electricity to work but, at the time, there was no infrastructure. So, in order to power and capitalize on this new product, there was a great need to develop a cheap, efficient way to generate and distribute electricity.
Edison founded the Edison Illuminating Company in the 1880s and started building DC (direct current) power stations that powered street lamps and residences that were close enough to the plant. Edison was convinced this was the way to go, but Nikola Tesla's AC (alternating current) system was more powerful and could be sent farther by cheaper means. It made much more sense to power a city with one giant power plant than it did to build a power station every few blocks. It's much easier to tend to the current generated at one station than to maintain dozens upon dozens of power stations strewn throughout the city. With this larger system, companies didn't need to generate their own power anymore; they just got it from the big power plant. Everyone got the same 120-volt electricity the same way, and nobody had to think about it anymore.

Modern micro-computing is heading in the same direction. I might be a little late to the table here, but I recently read The Big Switch by Nicholas Carr, first published in 2008. In this book, Carr conveniently compares modern computing to the power station story above and details the major upheaval the computer industry is facing… which, in my humble opinion, is nothing but positive for dental practices! Why does every single household have to have an IT guy (aka, your tech-savvy nephew who you only invite over when you accidentally download a virus)? Why does every single household have to have a microprocessor? Anti-viral software? Back-ups for its data? It's asinine. You've already seen the commercials and read articles (even in Dentaltown Magazine) about "the cloud," and soon more and more practices will be running their entire practice management systems on it.

Micro-computing made companies like Microsoft and Dell a fortune – primarily because for every dollar you spend on software, you end up spending four or five more dollars to keep it running properly, due to updates or needing an IT guy to come service your equipment. Basically, according to Carr, your current computer system is the equivalent to a direct current power station, and the cloud is the giant power plant. The current micro-computing business model is going to expire because of the cloud, eliminating costly upgrades and repairs to your practice management software. Here's how:

Back-up is Automatic
Remember when your brand-new practice management software was installed? Everyone was so excited (or intimidated) to get started. And while you and your team were getting trained you learned one of the major "to-dos" was to back up your servers. Don't you remember thinking, "Of course! We need to do this every single day, if not multiple times a day. Last thing we need is to lose all of our information. That would be catastrophic!" And then six or seven months later you'd remember to back up your system only after hearing a horror story about the guy down the street whose server crashed and he had to shut down his practice for a week to regain some semblance of practice management normalcy?

Backing up your system sucks. You always forget to do it, and it only becomes a priority a second after your server melts down. In the rare chance when you actually remember to do it, it takes all day because of all of the new data you've accumulated. On the cloud, everything is automatic – including backing up your information. Oh, and let's say a batch of servers that houses your information on the cloud goes down. Guess what, there are redundancies in place. If one of massive server farms Google is building exploded, your information would still be safe because it exists in a number of other data farms in other locations around the country (and even the world). Pretty cool, isn't it? Beats the hell out of backing up your aging software. Which brings me to my next point…

The Newest Version All the Time
Isn't it always the case around the time you get settled into the newest iteration of your practice management software, a newer version becomes available? And you can surely relate when a new update presents a glitch that has to be patched up by an IT expert until the new version arrives. It's eternally frustrating, right? When everyone moves to the cloud, everyone will get the latest and greatest available to them at all times. There's a glitch in the system? OK, chances are others have already encountered it and have contacted the people that can fix it on the cloud for good. Errors caused by your software won't have to wait 24 or 48 hours for the IT guy to show up and fix them.

No Server Upgrades – or Servers, Period!
Sometimes I feel bad for the guys who have CBCT machines in their offices. They're taking all these amazing scans with this incredible technology, but they're maxing out their servers every six months because these image files are gigantic. And every time they reach capacity, they have to shell out more money for more server space. Pretty soon, when everything is on the cloud, you can just upload everything and not have to worry about how much space is left on the server.

No More Disruptions from the IT Guy
Dental practices can be pretty bustling places at times. When your system is in need of a bug fix, chances are the IT guy will show up during the most productive time in your schedule. Try as hard as they might to stay out of everyone's way, when IT guys are in the office, you can count on countless disruptions. When you're on the cloud, everything is repaired behind the scenes. Problem with your software? Give your practice management software provider a call or even instant message them and they can get working on the problem from where they sit.

There are already companies that exist solely on the cloud. Right now, you can run your entire practice management system on the Internet. You don't need a server. You don't need IT. If there are any practice management software companies out there that want to ensure they're still competing in the next five to 10 years, they need to focus on moving to the cloud. In fact, if their number- one priority isn't getting their next platform out on the cloud, they might be in trouble.

Safe Data and Inexpensive Price Tag
On average, how much do you think you're paying each year on servers, software and for IT guys to come out and repair your crashed computers? $10,000? Maybe $15,000? We all know of colleagues or friends who have had computer crises in their practices. In some cases their systems weren't ever backed up (or they were improperly backed up), and every single one of these dentists will vouch it was the worst disaster their practice ever faced.

Another reason the cloud makes sense: I don't care what anyone says, we're still recovering from the recession. The easiest thing you can do to make money during a recession is cut costs. Right now you're paying one percent of your overhead to your electric bill, and five percent to IT. Why not get your IT down to one percent? I just want some dummy terminals that will run the practice management software for me. Let them worry about data storage. Let them worry about the servers and data back-ups.

Is the cloud right for any of us right now? Depends. Are you starting up a new practice or transitioning into one? If you are, it might not be a bad idea to look into. For most of us, transitioning into the cloud might be impractical. Eventually we might all transition into a hybrid system where everything that lives on our servers might be automatically backed up on the cloud. It's going to take time.

Are there drawbacks to the cloud? Right now, sure, but the Internet infrastructure is ever improving. If your entire system lives on the Internet and your Internet connection goes out, you might have an issue – but how often has your Internet connection gone out in the last five years? If it has gone out more than 10 times, you really ought to check with your current ISP and get a second line installed ASAP.

When you went to dental school, how many classes did you take on computer back-up? How many classes did you take on generating electricity? I had one class on electricity in physics and they explained to me in one day how electricity is made and that was the end of it. I don't want to be responsible for the 120-volt current coming into my office. I don't want to be responsible for my servers. I'd rather jump on the cloud and take care of my patients, worry free.

• To hear more of Howard's thoughts on this topic, go to Dentaltown.com and search: DTV Howard Speaks

Howard Farran, DDS, MBA, MAGD, is an international speaker who has written dozens of published articles. To schedule Howard to speak to your next national, state or local dental meeting, e-mail colleen@farranmedia.com.

Dr. Farran's next speaking engagement is May 26, 2011, at the Saratoga Dental Congress in Saratoga Springs, New York. For more information, please call Colleen at 480-445-9712.
May 26 • Saratoga Springs, New York
Saratoga Dental Congress
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October 26 • Raleigh, North Carolina
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