In May, Ortho2 began an exclusive partnership with Orchestrate Orthodontic Technologies to market and sell their 3D orthodontic CAD software. This powerful system allows the orthodontist to easily define tooth movements to design digitally perfect, yet inexpensive clear aligners and retainers in office. What’s unique about Orchestrate is that it is the first orthodontic system that allows the doctor to scan, design and create appliances completely in house. Since the Orchestrate software system is not aligned with any specific brand or type of appliance, it can be used for a multitude of purposes. Many of the existing Orchestrate users refer to it as “Photoshop for appliance design” with its ability to utilize data from a variety of sources and then easily manipulate this data.

Limitations of Cloud Computing

Do you get frustrated when you are at home checking your bank activity and you lose your Internet connection? Imagine if your practice management system went down on an August afternoon! The jump to cloud computing means that you are completely dependent on your Internet connection, which can be a scary fact for some users. While all major service providers guarantee “uptime,” you should be sure to check your local providers upload, download and latency speeds and history before signing up (you can test your broadband speeds easily at sites such as www.speedtest.net). One way to reduce your Internet anxiety is to employ a secondary connection such as a cellular router. These devices are inexpensive and allow for a stable Internet connection that can run at relatively fast speeds – currently up to 4G. In order to move to the cloud you need to feel confident that your Internet provider has fast and stable service. Without this, your daily mood might run in parallel with the status bars of your Internet connection.

Stop me if you’ve heard this one before... It’s a busy Monday afternoon in your office when your office manager tells you that your server is getting error messages because it is running low on drive space. You immediately contact your IT person (which in many cases is you) to discuss your options. After exploring these you decide to purchase a new server, updated operating system (OS), Sequel Server (SQL) and backup device with software and antivirus. You find out you will also need to upgrade the SQL on all your workstations and will need new versions of several Microsoft products to support the new server. This will cost you two down days, some additional training and more than $15,000. You’re not happy about any of this, but you almost blow a gasket when you find out that more than half of this cost is for “software.” You drive home questioning how needing more space on your hard drive ended up costing you $15,000!