There are several benefits to having an internal security camera system in your office.  Of course they help with theft prevention and prosecution of burglary and/or misuse of controlled substances.  Security cameras also give you the ability to follow not only your staff’s location, but also your patients’.  This really helps with work flow and being aware of people waiting or in need of assistance.  They are especially beneficial in larger offices where the doctor may not realize that a room is ready, or a patient/staff member is waiting.  These systems consist of cameras placed throughout the office.  Depending on the layout, you may have them in operatories or in halls and some offices also included exterior cameras for the parking lot and/or the front/back door.  These cameras are wired to a central computer that records all the video to a hard drive.  This computer is accessible through the Internet so you can monitor the office when you are not there.  There is software that you can load on any computers in your office so that you can view the camera images from any station.  Wiring requirements usually necessitate a power supply and cable runs to the cameras.  There are wireless systems available but an electrician will have to provide power to each location.  We recommend you always consult a certified installer to assure your installation will meet code. 

We recently held a seminar on the new HIPAA requirements in your office.  One of the rules that we brought up was the requirement to have your privacy policy available to your patients on your website.  Also, make sure if you are collecting any patient information on your website, that you include your privacy policy about how you will handle that information.  Here is an article about website privacy policie s in general.  These are just general guidelines not necessarily linked to health privacy.  These are some good guidelines to follow when thinking about patient privacy and your website.

Many dentists struggle with maximizing the potential of their website. Whether it is outdated or not relevant in search engine queries, it doesn’t produce the results that are expected. When we look at results from having a website, we look at converting web searchers into appointed new patients. These are the three goals we shoot for when designing and optimizing a website; Make sure they find you  Make them like you  Make sure they are who you want  One of the ways to increase your search engine rankings is to drive traffic to your website. The basic ways to drive traffic is to spread the word to your current patients. Here are a few simple ideas to drive traffic that don’t take any SEO knowledge: Add your web address to all marketing collateral  Link your website to your practice management software  Send your patients to the website to fill out forms  Request that patients visit your website  Run promotions/contests with entry forms on your website  Link to social media sites  Use third party questionnaires/review forms. We have outlined some basic steps that, at a bare minimum, should be done on every site. But the fact of the matter is that search engines are dynamic and changing constantly. Nobody knows the true inner workings of the major search engines and how they rank one site above another. The only way to consistently be at the top of search engines is to work your SEO on a daily basis. For an average business owner, this is not possible. If you want to rank on the first page, and ensure you stay there, give us a shout and we can help 904.443.0095.

So its that time of the year again when everyone runs around trying to remember what they need to buy/sell before 12/31 to improve their tax position.  I found this great article with tips for your personal finances before we head into 2011. Some things apply to everyone…but not all of them…I am hoping my friends and family don’t try to take advantage of #10!!  Happy New Year everyone!!!

Google has now started loading search results for videos.  When you search for a dentist in your area,  you may see that any videos show up towards the top of your search results.  This is good to know for increasing the amount of clicks you get to your website and for getting your name out there.  If you have any videos…if you need help see our last post…add those to youtube, and it may help your Google rankings/search results.

So you don’t have thousands of dollars to spend on a patient education system?  Have you noticed how much good content is out on the web?  If you have a few minutes to gather up some of your favorite content you can put it together in a nice little presentation and loop it for your patients.  All it takes is a YouTube account, Google chrome and a little plug-in that you can download.  It is very, very easy to do and it gives you the ultimate flexibility to add any video to the presentation whenever you like!  You can choose whatever you like and even make multiple loops for different rooms; say one on smokeless tobacco for hygiene one for and crown and bridge for the Doctors rooms.  Here is how: 1.       1.   Login to YouTube. If you don’t have an account, get one here… https://www.youtube.com/signup 2.        2.  Now let’s find some content on YouTube, i am going to use a clip from “The Doctors” on Cerec restorations and another clip on removing white spots.                     https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jtwgy57CFeo                    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_FielctXPFA&feature=related 3.        3.   Click “+ Add to” and then “New Playlist” near the bottom of the video. 4.        4.    Enter whatever you want for the name in the new dialog box i.e. Hygiene, the Doctors, Crown and Bridge, etc. then click enter. 5.        5.   Go to another video that you want to add to the playlist you created and click “+ Add to” again near the bottom of the video and choose the video you want to add it to. You now have your playlist and you can get to it by clicking your username in the top right corner and choosing “My Videos”.  Your playlists will show up in the left hand column.  You can do this from any computer, anywhere!  Pretty cool we can just push “play all” at this point and our playlist will play one after the other.  But what if we want to loop the hole playlist over and over again?  A simple little download will let you loop this video in the Google Chrome browser.  Google Chrome is a browser like Internet Explorer but it allows you to add little features via plug-ins. 1.        1.    Download Google Chrome from here if you do not have it:                    https://www.google.com/chrome 2.        2.    Now we need to download the loop plug-in, get it here: https://userscripts.org/scripts/show/57971 3.        3.   Run the installation of the script and answer all the questions in the affirmative. 4.        4 .  Restart your chrome browser and browse to your playlist.  There is now a “loop” button you can press along with play and full screen and the video will loop over and over!     This is a great solution for operatories where there is a computer monitor already in front of the patients. It can also be used as a patient education system in the front of the office as well.  Many of my clients have a waiting room TV that has a computer attached to it.  This is a great way to customize content to this TV.  If you do not have a computer to send a feed to the waiting room TV a small net top pc works great and is around $300.  The best part about it is that YOU control the content, if you want to add, remove or change the order of the clips, it just take a few mouse clicks.  You can also get fancy and upload videos of you, your staff and actual patients!!  Of course you need to make sure any content you have is authorized and any patients have signed the proper consent!   Enjoy, get creative, have fun, your patients will love it!