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The 3 Most Valuable Questions To Optimize Your Dental Technology By Paul Vigario

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The 3 Most Valuable Questions To Optimize Your Dental Technology

by Paul Vigario

For dentists, being a detective is par for the course. You know how to ask great clinical questions and survey the patient’s oral health landscape. You inquire about the patient’s goals, medical history, diet and previous dental work before developing a treatment plan. The questions you ask are curated to inform how you can best help the patient achieve optimal health.

Think about a recent patient you transformed. What would the outcome have been if you hadn’t asked specific questions about their goals, health and diet?

Your business is as unique as the individual smiles you see every day. Your success as both a clinician and business owner is a direct reflection of the quality of questions you ask.

When it comes to integrating design with your dental technology, there are a lot of questions to ask, but only a few can help you optimize your practice for success. Many common questions about integration miss the mark by placing emphasis in the wrong area, which can cost you time and thousands of dollars and harm your brand.

“When I spoke with several dental IT professionals, they wanted to know how big of a server I wanted, how many computers and how many TV monitors,” says Dr. Chase Larsen, a Townie who practices in Salt Lake City. “I really didn’t know.”

These are important questions but can leave you scratching your head. Unfortunately, it’s what dentists often face when integrating technology: You are a gifted clinician, not an information technology and office design expert.

Let’s shift perspectives and view the practice from a different vantage point, so you can feel as confident about your design and technology integration as you do clinical care.

Here are the three most valuable questions you can ask to optimize your dental technology integration.

What kind of experience do I want my patients to have?
“You have to think first and foremost about how you want your patients to feel,” says Vincent Spinella, a dental design and technology team expert at SurfCT. “When a doctor asks my opinion on implementing a specific technology or digital workflow, my first response is, ‘I have no idea.’ This might sound shocking, but it’s because every doctor has a distinct vision of success. Deeply meaningful motives can be revealed when you think about the experience your patients want to have when they’re with you.”

Asking this puts you in a patient-centric mindset, which allows you to focus and align your brand, ideal patient, and practice design and technology workflow.

“We want patients to feel like this is a practice that understands aesthetics and design,” says Larsen. “So we optimized our technology to make it feel artistic—for example, we redesigned our new-patient flow so when patients walk in, they experience a clean, modern practice. Our monitors look like pieces of art. The practice is now a space where patients who appreciate aesthetics feel comfortable and at home.”

Elevating the conversation takes the guesswork out of questions that may feel daunting. Understanding how you want your patients to feel allows the question, “How many monitors do I need?” to be intuitively revealed.

How do I want to communicate with my team and patients?
Seeking advice from colleagues, or watching what other dentists share online, can be great for inspiration but doesn’t incorporate your own story and is not the best approach for design and technology integration.

It’s great to get excited about what you see at another practice and aim for a similar look; however, there are two disadvantages to this approach.

There are numerous intersections between the time a patient walks in the door and when they complete treatment. Your patient journey may be vastly different from your colleague’s. These intersections are easy to overlook, but play a critical role in how well your technology is integrated and optimized.

There also are five different types of communication and four predominant learning styles. How you prefer to communicate, and how patients learn, is unique to you and your practice.

“Let’s use the iPad as an example,” Spinella says. “You can visually explain what crown lengthening is on a touchpad, and this sounds fun … until you discover you have no interest in drawing on an iPad. Rather than ask, ‘How can I get what my colleague has?’ it’s better to ask, ‘What methods of communication and learning work for me and my patients?’ ”

Drs. Lindsey Chang and Matthew Hatzke considered this before integrating technology into the endodontic practice they acquired in Lodi, California. “We knew it was important to bring in the best technology and also address the speed with which we want to process information and communicate with patients,” says Chang. “Being able to put things up on a screen and visually show what a root canal is and what’s causing the problem has transformed the way we communicate. The patient can now better understand and accepts treatment easier.”

Hatzke adds: “The previous practitioner preferred paper charts. Our brand is about ease and efficiency, so we made the decision to move to digital charts.”

“For our practice, it’s important to take the patient out of the dental chair to have conversations in a collaborative environment,” Chase says. “It’s possible to integrate technology so you can communicate with patients in a way that fits your vision.”

What is the goal for my technology?
When design is paired with dental technology integration, you can improve the accuracy and effectiveness of treatments, make dental care less invasive, reduce treatment time and provide new techniques so you can better care for patients.

You’ve likely heard the cautionary tale of the doctor who attends a dental conference and eagerly introduces a new piece of technology the following Monday morning. Let’s say this doctor decides to integrate wireless photograph transfer into the practice. This decision fits his brand and communication style. However, essential considerations will affect how a patient moves through treatment:

  • What type of lighting is required to take the best photographs?
  • Do I want to be a portable photographer, or should the camera be in a fixed location?
  • How long does it take to launch the software so the transfer process can begin?
  • How many locations can my photographs transfer to at once?
When we adjust our perspective and ask a different question, the queries above will become easier to answer. Using wireless photography transfer as an example, your goal could be to:
  • Document the condition.
  • Track changes over time.
  • Capture promotional images for marketing.
  • Provide visual aids for patient education.
  • Store a record for the patient file.
Optimizing this technology with your workflow in the practice can vary widely depending on your goal. If the goal is to gather exquisite before/after photographs for marketing the practice, the surrounding environment will be an important factor to consider. This may mean moving the patient out of the operatory for photography. If your goal is to photograph for clinical purposes only, a portable camera may work best.

Conclusion
Asking these three questions lifts the conversation above the line. It guarantees your brand, design and technology can work together so you can provide greater patient care. It will save you time and effort throughout the process, better prepare you to optimize your technology and help you realize your vision for success.
Author Bio
Paul Vigario Paul Vigario is an entrepreneur, healthcare technologist, keynote speaker and advisor who has pioneered the introduction of technology systems in dental practice and dental office automation. Vigario is the founder of several companies and products that connect design and technology with automation, including SurfCT.
Information: surfct.com
Dentaltown Magazine
September 2025
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