In a recent interview Richard Hirschland, worldwide general manager and vice president, Kodak’s Dental Systems Group, provided further insight into the integration of PracticeWorks and Trophy and how Kodak is working to leverage the three companies’ strengths to benefit dental professionals. Q. When did Kodak purchase PracticeWorks and Trophy?
A. The acquisition was announced on July 21, 2003, and was finalized after a vote by PracticeWorks shareholders approved the deal on October 7, 2003.
Q. How are the companies structured today?
A. PracticeWorks and Trophy are wholly-owned subsidiaries of Eastman Kodak Company. Each company has its own management structure and retains operational autonomy. However, product lines that originate in the PracticeWorks and Trophy organizations are now being marketed under the Kodak brand, to communicate to dental professionals that these products meet Kodak standards for quality and after-sale support. And of course, researchers, product development professionals and others within PracticeWorks and Trophy have preferential access to KODAK imaging science and other resources.
Q. Does Kodak view the acquisition as having transformed its dental business from a film to a digital company?
A. No. First and foremost, we are and always will be a customer-driven business. We never believed we should offer digital products to our dental customers just because they were digital. Instead, it was important that we carefully selected products that deliver clear value to dental professionals. Our vision is to be a technology-neutral provider of imaging and information systems—the acquisition accomplished this for us.
Also, we were a digital company before the acquisition. A great example is the tremendous success we’ve had with our dental digital camera line. These cameras demonstrate the unique value Kodak brings to digital imaging: they are easy to use, have functionality targeted to dental professionals’ needs and are backed by Kodak’s commitment to after-sales support. This is a formula that our customers appreciate. For example, since we introduced our latest digital camera, the KODAK DX6490 Dental Digital Camera System, sales have exceeded our projections by a substantial margin.
Q. Kodak has developed and marketed direct digital products for medical radiography for quite some time now. Does the company anticipate its experience in this area will have an impact on its dental digital radiography business?
A. Yes. For example, Kodak has developed two propriety image enhancement algorithms for its medical radiology systems. One algorithm, KODAK DIRECTVIEW EVP Software, is designed to optimize image latitude and high-contrast image detail. EVP software gives you optimal images with no intervention. Another, KODAK DIRECTVIEW PTS (perceptual tone scaling) software, applies exam-specific algorithms to optimize x-ray image display. Today, Kodak is working with researchers at PracticeWorks and Trophy to explore how these algorithms might be optimized for dental radiography and incorporated into their digital radiography capture and display products.
Q. What is Kodak’s Image Sensor Solutions (ISS) Group?
A. It is a Kodak division that focuses on developing, manufacturing and marketing state-of-the art image sensors. The group supports a number of applications throughout Kodak, from satellite and medical imaging devices to digital cameras sensors. The ISS team also works to identify and market new sensor applications and solutions. Within the context of Kodak’s dental business, the ISS represents a highly effective resource that will support Trophy Radiologie as they develop future generations of their intraoral and extraoral digital sensors.
Q. What role has Kodak played in the history of the DICOM standard?
A. Kodak has supported and contributed to the development of the DICOM (Digital Imaging and Communications in Medicine) standard since work first began with it in the early 1980s. Consequently, we have extensive expertise in developing software that complies with the standard. This expertise will help ensure that our dental practice management software, as well as our other dental imaging software products, will demonstrate market leadership in DICOM standard implementation.
Q. How does Kodak believe it can help dentists comply with HIPAA (the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act)?
A. This is another area where Kodak has already invested considerable research and development for our medical imaging business. For example, we have developed a secure email system for transmitting digital medical images, and off-site disaster recovery storage services (offsite storage of medical records is also required by HIPAA). We are currently exploring how these existing software applications can be leveraged to benefit dental professionals.
Q. What impact, if any, has the acquisition had to date on the company’s digital imaging products?
A. Kodak’s emphasis on ease-of-use—our “you push the button, we’ll do the rest” product design philosophy—has resulted in specific enhancements to several of our products. For example, our new KODAK RVG 6000 Digital Radiography System, which features image resolution of over 20 line pairs per millimeter, features a sensor remote control for more convenient image capture. We are also adding new functionality to our KODAK DX6490 Dental Digital Camera System to enable a “one button” download of digital images into Kodak’s dental practice management software systems.
Q. What are Kodak's plans for its dental film business?
A. Dental x-ray film remains a high-quality, cost-effective diagnostic imaging tool. Additionally, patients find film-based imaging very comfortable. It remains the diagnostic imaging choice of a majority of dentists. Kodak understands this, and we are committed to supporting our dental film product lines through our traditional dealer channel. This is in keeping with our commitment to being a technology-neutral business that is a leader in each of the dental imaging technologies. As long as film provides benefits to dental professionals, we will continue to provide and support the best radiographic film possible.
Q. How does Kodak sell its products to U.S. customers?
A. We have longstanding relationships with U.S. dental products dealers, and we continue to offer our film and consumables products through those dealers, as we always have. Our dental practice management solutions and our digital radiography products are sold in the United States through PracticeWorks’ direct sales force, just as they were before the acquisition.
Q. What metrics does Kodak use to track improvements to its customer support call center performance?
A. We use a number of data points, including how quickly phones are answered how quickly callers are connected to technical experts, and how quickly technical experts are able to answer questions.
About Kodak’s Dental Systems Group
Kodak’s Dental Systems Group is a leading participant in infoimaging, a $385 billion industry created by the convergence of image-and-information technology. The business, which includes wholly-owned subsidiaries PracticeWorks, Inc. and Trophy Radiologie, S.A., develops, manufactures and markets dental imaging and information systems for dental practitioners, including practice management software and electronic services, intraoral and extraoral dental imaging films, processing chemistry and x-ray equipment; direct-digital dental x-ray technology; digital cameras and accessories for dental applications; photographic-quality paper for printing digital images; COOK-WAITE brand local anesthetics; and a variety of related products and services. Infoimaging unites three closely related imaging markets that enable people to more easily take and share images as information: devices, such as digital cameras and x-ray systems; infrastructure, such as practice management software; and services and media, such as photographic-quality inkjet paper and electronic claim processing. For more information about Kodak’s digital radiography products and practice management solutions, call 1-800-944-6365, visit Kodak’s Health Imaging Dental Systems Group website at http://www.kodak.com/go/dental or contact your regional KODAK products representative.
(Note: Kodak, Cook-Waite, KODAK DX6490 Dental Digital Camera System, KODAK RVG 6000 Digital Radiography System, KODAK DIRECTVIEW EVP Software, and KODAK DIRECTVIEW PTS are trademarks.