Audio Recording Your Consultations? The Future of Dental Record Keeping – IC039

Jaz’s Introduction:
Now, some of you might say that it’s important, that’s really contemporaneous and it’s good legal defense in case anything goes wrong, fine, that’s important.

But you know what’s really important to me is HOW MUCH TIME I would spend at the end of a working day and I’m knocked, I’m tired, and I’m having to just go over my notes and make sure that everything is correct and proper, and this can take a real long time that I know associates and colleagues who spend, gosh, about 90 minutes after day of work, just going through their notes, make sure they haven’t missed anything, make sure they wrote about all the risks that they discussed with their patient.

Make sure they wrote out the protocols properly. Now this is extremely draining. This is extremely laborious, and these are times that we should be spending with our loved ones, not on a laptop or a computer, writing up our notes. Okay, so this is the sad reality of modern dentistry, right? Are you affected by this?

Okay. So I wanted a system whereby I have to type as little as possible and do as little as possible. So I can make time for things are important in life. This is of course why lots of features and apps and programs have come into fruition over the last couple of years to help make our dental notes more efficient.

I’m sure you’re familiar with some of these. Now, let me tell you one thing when it comes to procedural notes. Let’s say you’re doing a root canal extraction, right? Most of the stuff that you do follows a protocol like the way I bond composite is pretty much the same every single time. I will always air abrade.

I will always use the same bond. I’ll always rub it in for an X number of seconds. Do you see what I mean? So therefore, this is where templates are really useful, because you’re only doing minor tweaks here and there. It’s very simple to add your template, just tweak it. But what you can’t really template is the all important initial conversation and the discussion at the end and the consent process.

Because consent is individual to each person. So even if you use all these fancy softwares, you still need to put your fingers to a keyboard and start typing. Until now, because for the last few months I’ve been using Dental Audio Notes and I’ve just been so, so happy because the biggest problem we had is the amount of TMD patients I see.

And they have a story and I want to capture that story, but my poor nurse Zoe can’t keep up with the typing, right? So when I learned about Dental Audio Notes and the ability to record and transcribe everything, it just blew my mind. Now I’m talking to the founders, Ala and Adam today. So a dentist and an engineer coming together to create dental audio notes, which makes us so wholesome and so good.

But their vision was to make notes really high quality so you’re not stressing and worrying. The whole time and to save you time. So this is important, but what I wanted was a transcription. And so I’ve been working with Adam to actually get the transcription even better, and he’s been so responsive, so I wanted to just showcase what they’ve made right.

Dental Audio Notes does exactly what it says on the tin. It allows you to record your conversations with your patients that all important initial conversation, the consent process, and the discussions afterwards. Can you imagine the possibilities of this? Can you imagine how much time this could free up for you as a clinician so you could spend more time with your loved ones and not worrying that you didn’t capture something?

Now, there are so many other uses and considerations and maybe concerns about recording audio for your notes, right? There are some concerning bits, and we discussed that in this interference cast. And so with that, hello Protruserati. I’m Jaz Gulati, and welcome to this Interference Cast, this non-clinical interruption.

We’re talking about notes, how to take better notes, and I’m convinced that audio is the future, not video, because that’d be clunky. That would be not good. Audio just makes a lot of sense and you’ll see why from our conversation with Ala and Adam. So over to the main podcast and I’ll catch you in the outro.

Main Episode:
Ala and Adam, welcome to the Protrusive Dental Podcast. How are you guys?

[Ala]
We’re very well, very happy to be here Jaz. Thank you so much for having us on. It feels like a huge honor to be actually saying those words to you.

[Adam]
I’m very excited. Thank you.

[Jaz]
Thank you so much, guys. And so, we’ll do a little bit in introduction, right? So, Ala you are the dentist and Adam, you are the tech guy. And then you guys joined for forces in life. And now in this sort of adventure, this amazing thing that you are going to talk with the most episode will be about this. Tell us a little about yourselves, how you met, and a little about just generally what dentists should know about you.

[Ala]
Okay, so we met at uni. Adam was very cool. He had long blonde dreads. I thought he was the coolest guy I’d ever seen. And tried to set him up with my friend because I thought he was so cool that he’d never want to go out with a geek like me. But, actually turns out he’s a geek too, just in secret.

And yeah, so that’s how we met. It was a long time ago. It was about 16 years ago now. So we’ve been on a bit of a life adventure. We’ve got two little ones and now a company together as well. And we are really enjoying the ride. It’s a ride and it’s fun. There’s a bit of hope in it. Yeah, a bit of hope for good life.

Working together to create something good together that actually helps people and achieve something, which I think it’s an idea that’s as old as the hills, so there’s nothing new in it.

[Jaz]
But someone’s got to do it. Like, it’s a bit like everyone had the idea for Uber, right? Everyone had the idea for Uber.

Everyone did, right? Everyone had the idea for like Uber eat. So it is one thing, imagining things, but someone’s got to execute. So, we’ll talk about dental audio notes DAN and whatnot, but just a little bit more about the origin story, like how did the conversation actually begin? I mean, I think Ala when we spoke before it was an experience that you hadn’t practiced and then you thought, okay, we’ve got to do something. How can we improve the record taking, which is a big pain area for dentists. Can you tell us more about that?

[Ala]
Yeah, so there are a couple of things that happened over the years. One of the main challenges was I was coming home late and Adam was like, why are you, what are you doing? Why are you still at work?

I’m like, oh, I’m just writing up my notes from the day. Like I’m just filling them in just making sure they’re all how I want ’em to be, and I want ’em to be good, you know? And the GDC says as much detail as possible, and that’s kind of what I was aiming for. And Adam is a problem solver.

So he kind of said, do you know what? I like, surely this can be fixed. And he’s got a background in software and do you want to talk about that a bit? I’ve dropped you in it. I’ve said I wouldn’t do that. So Adam, yeah, Adam’s got a bit of a background in that and was just like, I’m sure this can be fixed.

And we looked at it a couple of years ago for the first time, didn’t we? Did like a low tech version and then cloud came along and Amazon Web Services came along and everything started getting good enough that we could actually do that together. And I’m like, do you know what? Let’s just fix it. But Adam is a fixer.

There are so many problems in our lives that he has fixed. It’s one of the reasons we have a big rock in our garden. But that’s another story.

[Jaz]
Adam, what’s your day job like? What do you actually do day-to-day?

[Adam]
Well, day-to-day now I’m doing DAN. We’ve been-

[Jaz]
Oh wow. Okay. Brilliant.

[Adam]
Building DAN. And now we’re bringing it to market. Yeah. Before DAN, so I trained as an engineer. And before DAN, I was managing industrial software products. So, industrial process control, energy efficiency, sustainability. Working for global clients. And then the opportunity came up in our lives to look at the record keeping or the seed of the idea for DAN properly and dedicate ourselves to it. So when that opportunity came, we just dove in and focused on developing DAN.

[Ala]
It’s just like you say Jaz. It was that moment where you were like, this is an idea, but hang on, we’ve got the skills. We’ve got the opportunity, we’ve got the time in our lives to do that. That sounds like a fun project. Gimme the ball. Let’s grab that with both hands and let’s just do it and let’s see what happens. And yeah, it’s been really good so far. We’re excited for the next stage.

[Jaz]
Excellent. And we’re going to delve right into this. And what just reminds me what this conversation reminds me of so far is when you look at Steve Jobs and Bill Gates and you think, why did Steve Jobs and Bill Gates do what they did?

And if you look at the commonalities, right, they’re both, I think they were both born in 1955. And then that’s relevant because when the computers were becoming a bit more accessible, they were at that right age, at the right time, that they were able to capitalize on it. And so now, the reason I draw that comparison away is because you are not only just an actual marriage, you’re actually in a marriage, but like the marriage of dentistry and tech and IT is a wonderful thing.

[Ala]
Yeah.

[Jaz]
We’re seeing digital dentistry. And so what you two represent is that in action. And that led to the creation of DAN, Dental Audio Notes. And so in terms of my experience, but before we delve into who is the ideal person for it? When I came across DAN from our conversations, I was like, okay, this sounds brilliant.

But the reason that I perhaps took you by surprise, Adam, is the reason that excited me the most about this was the transcript, not so much the actual audio. I was excited by the transcript because I thought if I can just record the conversation, I don’t have to actually write any notes because it’s all there what we did.

And just to take a another step back basically, I actually started exploring different ways to make my notes more efficient. And I don’t know if you’ve come across Adam, perhaps, or maybe Ala as well, dragon speak medical, that kind of stuff. So, I got some colleagues and what they do and shout out to Ronnit who does this, he’s got a microphone and he’s basically dictating his notes and as he’s doing a root canal, instead of being a silent treatment, he’s actually saying medial buccal canal found 16 millimeters.

So as he’s saying it, it’s actually coming up on. So it’s like a contemporaneous as he’s doing it now, he has to be new line, new line. So it sounds a bit robotic, a little bit annoying, but that is one way. But there’s some challenges and some clunkiness with that. So when I came across, DAN, I’m using it at the moment for my TMD consultations because my TMD consultations, it’s very difficult for my nurse Zoe to write everything down the patient’s saying.

And these histories are very complex. There’s loads of facets to it, right? And so now that I’ve been using DAN, my nurse is so much more chill, right? She’s still making those sound. Again, I like the fact that you can, she can still jot things down as the audio’s being recorded, generating the transcript, but she’s just much more chilled that if she misses something, it’s okay, it’s being recorded and there’s going to be a transcript so that when I review it and I send my treatment plan report, I don’t miss any vital piece of information.

So that’s what really caught me. Now, back to you guys. So where do you think is when you started to create this and perhaps if it’s evolved now, who do you think is the ideal dentist to be using an audio recording software?

[Ala]
So I think any dentist who is interested in mastering their dental records, so in just getting them right. Just getting them right every time. So part of DAN was born out of the frustration of what you wrote down versus what really happened. And anybody who wants to solve that tension and just not have that in their lives anymore, that’s what DAN is for. So it gives you genuinely complete, accurate and contemporaneous records without having to sit there till 11 o’clock at night making sure that they are complete.

[Adam]
Yeah, if you look at the patient record holistically, then it’s full of all different technologies as you were saying. You’ve got x-rays, photographs, and of course written notes and models, and when it came to that, complete, accurate, contemporaneous of the conversation between dentist and clinician.

Then patient to clinician. It just made sense. The audio was the right technology for that because if you’re trying to write it up, it seems that dentists were trying to write up their conversation and you can’t, like, you just can’t achieve complete, accurate and contemporaneous like that.

It’s a trilemma, you can choose two. You’re either going to do it late at night and get everything. Or you’re going to miss stuff if you try and do it immediately and so audio just seems to as the technology, as you were saying, just sort of cover that challenge, and then that migration of technology.

I mean, we looked at this years and years ago, and that was just a case of using some software on your computer managing the files. And that was even before cloud was even a thing to really simplify that into a product. And that evolution now is, is there’s great technologies out there for transcribing audio into text.

And then obviously trying to pick out speakers and identification. And then you could start to lay some filters over that, like you were saying, picking out new words, sentences, things like that. And I mean, that technology landscape is really exciting at the moment. It’s really exciting to see where that’s going in the realm of clinical recordkeeping.

It’s probably a realm that the dentistry like dentists and professionals, I think should probably be influencing and driving. Rather than not necessarily coming from an outside space, because there’s a lot of considerations that clinicians have for their patients that a lot of people from a technology background, it’s just quite, it’s separate. You’re in different fields, you know?

[Ala]
It’s actually, that’s been super fun because being able to get a product, so it’s actually works in clinic. And it actually works. It helps your flow of your conversation with your patient rather than getting in the way. So we’ve got the little thing where it can, the view can be on top.

It’s literally two clicks to do the consent and then start the process of recording. It’s the conversation that question that you give to your patient at the beginning confirms the consent and you only keep the record if it’s been consented to. All of those come little bits.

We could just get that right. There is a bit of a joy in that. There’s so many similarities, like you were saying, you had digital dentistry, really bringing joy to your workflow generally. Like anyone who has a cerec machine or uses a facial scanner or uses one of the intraoral scanners or I know that the girls in our clinic really enjoying using their 3D printer and all that kind of stuff at the moment, and anyone who’s got the joy of that, it’s the joy of mastery, isn’t it?

It’s like that’s the fun of dentistry. It’s like getting each bit better and better and better. That’s what I felt clinical record keeping was just missing, that there was no joy. Now, every time when I have DAN on, I feel like I’m literally doing the best that is available in record keeping.

And that’s just a pleasure. And it means I know my notes not perfect, but they’re really good each time. And instead, I can concentrate on that conversation with my patient. I can make sure that I am doing the consent. I can make sure that I am telling them all the bits and pieces that I want to tell them.

And we’ve got all the other stuff in the background, just like normals. So my nurse is still writing in the background. I still have a summary because you need the written record for that quick view so you know what’s happening next time you come in. But if ever I need it, DAN is just there for me in the background and there’s no substitute for reliving that conversation. There’s no substitute for that.

[Jaz]
I mean, with having to ever go through a conversation, you can just do the whole Control F, Command F and just find the key words as if you ever needed to. Right? You can just search within, imagine you are really running late and you don’t have even time to do a summary.

I’m not saying that’s the best way to go, but you’ve got this huge transcript there. And you can then extrapolate from it and everything is essentially recorded there. Now I’m going to play devil’s advocate with you guys in a moment because a lot of dentists will be thinking this and it’s important to discuss this basically, but before we even get there, I just want to say in terms of where you designed the product and the way I’m using it.

So I don’t think, and please tell me if you agree with me, if I’m doing a difficult extraction, obviously the most important bits of that is the initial conversation and the end conversation. The actual bits of treatment we don’t record because it’ll be pointless. The audios being recorded for no reason.

No one needs to hear the sectioning of a tooth or whatever. Right? So it’s the conversation, it’s the consent and it’s the proper aftercare, the post-operative instructions that are recorded. And I’m just clarifying for dentists that might be thinking, how does this work? Because many, many years ago I saw in a Facebook group, dentist Facebook group, people were talking about video recording consultations because the state of the current law has become so strict and may perhaps we should be video recording, but obviously that’s clunky huge file sizes.

Audio just makes sense because the conversations is what you said or didn’t say that matters. Right. So that makes complete sense to me. And you guys agree that you don’t need to do anything else. Like you didn’t design it so that you couldn’t dictate what you’re doing as you’re doing it so that you don’t have to write any notes. That wasn’t the intention. It was to get the conversations and the consent. Am I right in that?

[Ala]
That’s what we designed it for, but we’ve been speaking to quite a few different people over the years and one of the ladies we spoke to Anne Budenberg, she’s worked with MPS and John Tier and Kevin Lewis, who have all been kind of really helpful to us. They’ve been really, really kind with their inputs, but she-

[Jaz]
Just for international listeners, MPS like just tell basic indemnity dental legal people.

[Ala]
They’re global. Yeah, they’re global, so yeah, so they were giving us different, so it’s just like any- so you can use it in so many different ways. And initially we designed it with my use case, which was recording my consultations.

It’s really great having Adam just here because as those conversations happen with people and they can be like, oh, can you use it like this? You’ll be like, okay, I can put that functionality and we can just do that. And it’s lovely not having a huge international team of people coding that we have to try and get that over and look, we can literally have that conversation having going to be like, look, I would knock this up. What’d you think about this?

And then let’s get that right and let’s get put that on board. So it’s been lovely being able to listen to people who are on board and getting that thing. So for example, when we first spoke to you, you were really frothing about the transcriptions. We were like, oh, cool, let’s solve this. Then let’s do this. Let’s get transcription. And that’s something that’s going to be you’re enjoying working on that at the moment, aren’t you?

[Adam]
Yeah. The core technology is audio. And it’s how people are going to use that and like, yeah, you were saying it’s really a great example earlier. Someone’s actually writing their notes as you go. I mean-

[Ala]
DAN can do that.

[Adam]
DAN can do that. Because you’ve got the audio and it’s transcribing it. You obviously have that situation. Now, if there might be, you’re recording hours, well, not hours, a longer period of time with fewer words, but yes, but the key certainly for all the beginning was that exchange of information between patient and clinician and clinician and patient.

It’s both ways. Obviously, you as the clinician are trying to make sure that you’ve covered all the things and given all the information. But also you are responding to the information that you are receiving, and the patient might well clearly be giving some signals about some preference. And again, that’s really key. I think you’ve got both sides. It’s not just you, it’s the patient sharing their information as well.

[Ala]
Yeah, so hopefully DAN continue.

[Jaz]
Very very valid.

[Ala]
All of those different ways of using it. And as you use it more and more, you’ll find the stories of where it was really helpful that you wouldn’t have thought it was, so you wouldn’t have even considered it at the beginning.

So, for example, if you have a patient where the consent is really challenging and you think, okay, I’m not entire, or the patient’s not really confident that they’re going to remember it. The patient’s not that confident that they’re going to be able to remember enough to tell their partner about when they go home.

Ideally, that partner would be there in that consultation. That’s not always possible. Ideally, the family will be there. Sometimes they live in Australia. There’s all of those different things where you’re like, do you know what? Shall we just record our conversation? I’ll say everything out and then I can just send that to you, and the relief that’s on that patient’s face.

All that stress of trying to remember or worrying that they might be getting a bit forgetful. All of that stress of being like, oh, how am I going to justify that cost to my partner when I go home? Because that conversation when you go home is just going to be, oh, how did your dental, dental appointment go? Going to cost me five grand?

Like it is literally that whereas, if you can show value to that person who’s at home with no extra work. You’re not having to do anything extra. You’re just having that conversation with your person like you normally would do, and then that person can take that home to them.

So often even that offer of sending it is actually enough, and that person just reduces their stress. They’re like, cool, okay. And then they go ahead and make their decisions just like they normally would, you know? So it’s not something that you have to offer to share. It’s a function that’s available and you can offer to share that if it’s helpful to that person.

The other side of it is if you have a difficult interaction, and suddenly you’ve got somebody who’s you’re coming across some barriers or that person isn’t happy. Okay. Do you know what? Instead of my nurse having to type up a million miles an hour and wondering if they’ve got it and wondering if they’ve got the tone that it was said quite right, let’s just record this conversation.

We’re going to, and the language you can use is great cause it’s really positive. So you can say, oh, let’s record this. We are going to have a really good exchange of information. This is a really important conversation. I’d really like to concentrate just on you and not worry about whether my nurse can keep up.

Although I’m very lucky. All my nurse are very fast typers. I have to say that cause they’ll be listening to this later. But, it’s that nice conversation that you can just be like, cool. Let’s give this the attention it deserves. Let’s give you the time and energy that you deserve.

Let’s concentrate just on us. Is it okay if I take an audio recording and it would just be part of your dental clinical record and then the power of that is that you can take that back. If that conversation doesn’t go as well as you hope it work, and you think, that’s okay. It’s not great, but it’s okay.

You can listen back to that. You can listen back to that with your principal or with your other dentist that you really respect and admire and want their feedback. It’s a very humbling experience because you often pick up things that you would’ve loved to have said differently or you’d have loved to have changed.

But man, coming back to that patient being genuinely interested in what they said and how they said it, and picking up all of that, and then using that in your response to them, that’s so powerful. So you can come from a position where a patient’s left like, it’s okay, but it’s not great. And then, the next email back, you get back from that patient is, do you know what?

I feel so heard. I feel so understood. I’m really glad that you’ve taken the time and the energy with me to talk that through. Let’s proceed, you can’t put a price on that. That’s the bit, and those are the stories that as you use it more and what you’re fighting more and more, that’s good.

[Jaz]
It’s like fast tracking your communication skills development. Right. And that the last thing you mentioned is definitely, is that the second scenario, the challenging patient you mentioned? Absolutely. So when I start to explore the different uses of DAN, like I said at the moment I’m only using it for my TMD consultations.

And I don’t see many new patients at the moment cause I’m just so in inundated my regular flow of patients but I would like to use it for brand new patients consultations, because that’s a really important conversation. What are their wants? What are their goals? What are their desires? I didn’t appreciate that first scenario actually.

That patient who maybe an elderly patient who just needs to help or reminders when they go home. Or the patients who needs to speak to their communicator, to their spouse. Exactly what is the conversations that were had and to be able to send them with that audio. I didn’t actually appreciate that, so that’s good.

And the final thing I guess is if a dentist wanted to use it in that way, that as they’re placing the implant and they’re saying, I’m placing a Straumann implant, three millimeters, I’m now doing this. I’m grafting it in the patient’s s data or whatever. Right? And I’m now doing this type of flap, I’m using this suture and they don’t have to do any notes because it’s all transcribed.

That could be a future way of doing it. And then, with AI and stuff, it could tag what’s extra or what’s intro come up with heading this stuff. I’m sure we’re going to talk about that, Adam, I’m sure that’s going to get you very excited. But let’s play, let me challenge you guys or something, right?

One of the dentists listen to this and watching this maybe, they’re probably thinking one thing. They’re thinking, well, if it’s recorded and I forget to mention that their tooth could have fractured or it could have worn the sinus and I’m screwed because a lot of people’s templates, okay, they will have that written there.

But, if they didn’t actually say it and I know the answer. We all know the answer. We know what’s right here. Okay, but what would you say to that dentist who says that, well, that’s too much pressure on me. I now have to be the perfect communicator. What would you say to that?

[Ala]
So it’s only recording what you choose to record. So just because you haven’t recorded it doesn’t mean it didn’t happen because that kind of conversation can happen with the dental nurse that could be happening at any other time when the appointment isn’t being recorded. So DAN is picking up what you did say and making sure that you get credit for that in your records.

It doesn’t mean that you didn’t say it, but what it does do is if you ever are in that thing where you think, okay, well I actually need to look back at my records and see if I am screwed. Do you know that relief when you know that it is recorded? Because it shows the effort and the energy that you put into that consultation, and that is something that your template will never give you credit for.

It will never give you credit for the fact that you did that in the words that that patient was able to understand that you did it in the amount of information that they were able to take on board on that day. And sometimes those patients are so anxious would saying all of that had been the right thing anyway.

So that’s what DAN does is it makes it really honest. It makes it really clear cut. It takes away all of that. But it’s in my template, but did I actually say it? So can I be confident in the way I came back to that person? Or you can even say, do you know what, I’ve listened back to my recording. I’ve listened back to our appointment.

I’ve relived that conversation. These are all the things that I did say and that we did talk about. I didn’t say that and I’m in hindsight, I wish I’d have said this differently. You are going to get such a different response from that patient if you come back with honesty and integrity to that.

And I think that’s that duty of candor and all that kind of thing. I think that’s what that’s about. I think that’s what that’s trying to generate is that honesty and that good relationship with that patient and that dentist.

[Jaz]
I think personally, the way that we should view it is not like, oh, now there’s a pressure on me to be perfect. Because you said yes just because you didn’t say it in the recording doesn’t mean, you can’t put it in the note because it wasn’t a conversation that was had outside the recording, but if you wanted to be someone like me who I would like to just record everything so that I don’t have to type a single word and just transcribe, that was my dream.

Okay. So for me, I’m like, that should be elevating me. That should be the right kind of pressure. Of course, I never want to be in a scenario where I forget to mention a really important risk such as a sinus involvement. I should be consenting our patients every time that a tooth could fracture of it’s very carious and so that’s putting the right pressure on me as a clinician to make sure that I do right by my patient and I communicate the right things.

And so what should this should prompt for all of us is to make checklists. The checklist manifesto, we should have checklists. And what this does then is having that little bit of pressure that, okay, this is being recorded. I better be making sure that I consent properly. That’s not a bad thing, that’s a wonderful thing for oppression.

[Ala]
So it’s been really interesting speaking to some really intelligent people about it. And it’s the people who are at the top of their profession and they know what they’re doing and they get to those little nuggets straight away. It’s amazing. It’s really fun. So Cannon Lewis, so I mentioned he is one of those really people who just knows dentistry inside out.

He was director of the largest global indemnity company, medical protection, Dental Protection Society for I think 18 years and was involved in them for even longer, but he’s now with the consulting with the BDA. So he picked out that the DAN has the potential to do wanders for the quality of the communication between the patient and the dentist.

And that is arguably a more important dividend than the records themselves. So when you are aware that you’re being recorded, because you do feel like you’re on stage, definitely that’s feeling relaxes after a little time. But the first time you put that on, you are on stage, you are aware of exactly every single word you’re saying and how you’re saying it.

It means you are communicating better. It means your patient is also communicating better because as soon as you press the record, they feel on stage too, and they’re like, oh, again, that feeling relaxes. It doesn’t get in the way of a good conversation, but it does give it importance and it means that the patients sit up. They listen better. You are more in tune with them. You’re doing all of that body language with them because you are more in flow with them.

[Jaz]
Can I picture you a scenario on, right, on this topic? I think it’s perfect time to just interject here with the scenario. Let’s say a common, not a common scenario, hopefully not too common, but a scenario that’s really a heart sync moment for dentist is they’re about to play veneers.

Maybe they’re perhaps place eight veneers, right? And then you try them in and you’re getting approval before you definitively cement these veneers in. Now you can imagine where I’m going here with this. Now the patient says to you, oh my God, I love them. And a week later they’re like, I hate them, but you just glue them in.

Right? So the way I manage that currently before DAN would be some sort of a consent form, some form of sign that okay and literally says, I like my veneers. I’m happy to glue these in. If I change my mind, that’s okay, but it’s going to cost nine or a pound a tooth to change my mind. And that’s fine.

They know what the deal is, okay? They need to be happy. They need to be happy, and they sign that off. But one problem here with paper and consent forms is it’s not worth the paper is it’s printed on right. Consent forms are, I didn’t understand the time, whatever. That’s why I keep my consent form really simple, but just recording that conversation.

And so if that’s recorded and if someone listens to in the future, did the dentist give the patient an adequate time to look and assess? Was the patient, was the dentist encouraging to the patient to really point out any areas they may not like, was the patient happy with the fit?

And so they can say, it’s all being picked up at audio. Oh my god, I love them. These are amazing. I love you, Doc. Thanks so much. Yes, please glue them in. And the future, they start kicking off I want a refund. Then that’s there to show that, hey, by the way, can you just listen to how ecstatic you are?

I’m sorry that you changed your mind. I can help you, but you’re going to be billed for it. What do you think about that?

[Adam]
Seems legit.

[Ala]
You’ve got it, and it’s that-

[Jaz]
This is the beauty of it. This is the beauty of it.

[Ala]
Yeah, it’s all of those things. We were just like, do you know what we work really hard. We try really hard. And your written notes are just they’re grateful that summary, but they don’t pick up any of that. And by just clicking a button twice, you can just have all of that. And if you never use it for-

[Jaz]
Just my mind, wondering with all the thoughts, like black triangles, orthodontics risks, telling the patient at the beginning that this is a really extreme rotation and it might not rotate all the way.

Just make sure you understand that, and they’re, oh, yeah, I understand. I’m not looking for perfect. But at the end, when they start being a more of a perfectionist, you’ve got to remind them, hang on a minute. Do you remember this conversation that we had? Let me remind you, this is about, okay. This is why I like you.

[Ala]
And then they’re reliving that conversation as well. Then, so they feel those feelings again where they were like, oh no, that is how I felt about it. And like, now how I felt has changed and that’s okay. But that is how I felt. And it brings them back into that and it, it just takes away.

So imagine if you didn’t have that record, you’d be looking back at your records and you’d be like, it says that, but is that just in my template or It says that, but I’m sure I didn’t say it quite that way. That might just be how my nurse paraphrased.

[Jaz]
It didn’t capture the emotion of the patient.

[Ala]
And the emotion of the dentist as well. Like the way in which you’re saying it in a really caring way, or the way in which you’re saying it in the way that’s right for them. Or using analogies that are good for them, whereas all your nurse might write down at the time is, they’re not fast typers. Or you’ve got a trainee nurse, or you’ve got somebody who’s-

[Jaz]
Born black triangles. That’s it.

[Ala]
And yeah. Exactly. Even if it’s got all the detail in the world. It’s just different from how you said it when you see it written down.

[Adam]
Well, one of the analogies I’ve heard a Ala uses, so you had charting and then photography became a thing. And photography doesn’t replace charting, but it provides color and context to the charting. And now you’ve got 3D models essentially doing that even further and audio is simply that context and color around your clinical conversation, which are supporting your written notes so that your written notes can focus on being clinical. Not a record of your conversation.

[Jaz]
Amazing. So the dental legal folk, what do they think about DAN? What’s been the verdict so far in terms of feedback from the medical legal?

[Ala]
So they’re really happy for us to be around. It’s been great. It’s been really good feedback. I think they would also like to be working from truth rather than from what is maybe written down in the record or a post facto record of what should have happened in an ideal world. I think it’s an adjunct, so it’s more richness. It’s not a replacement. You’d still want to be having a written record. You’d still want to be, just like you have charting as well as you have photography.

It’s an extra, it’s on top of, but it just happens to be an extra, that’s just two clicks of a button and one sentence with your patient. It’s a really easy extra to do. You’re not having to learn photography skills. You’re not having to kind of populate. Something all of your carefully crafted things that you’ve already got in place.

You don’t have to change any of that. You don’t have to do loads of team training. Although we can train a team if that’s helpful to people, we are happy to do that and to make that happen. We can come in and just show people what it’s about or different ways that we can do that, but you’re not having to do any of that, and you’re not having to get the whole practice on board either because it’s cloud-based, because it’s individual, it’s priced to be okay for individuals to have, or hygienists to have, or TCOs have been some of our people who have appreciated it most because who’s sitting there writing their record for them.

There’s nobody there and they’re having the richest conversations. They’re having the most caring conversations, and they’re the ones that they have their checklists of what they’re going to talk about, and they have that really well, and then they’ve just got discussed implants or patient it’s so narrow compared to what they actually do.

And so they’ve been some of our biggest fans, they’ve been the ones that have been like, yes, come on, dentist, get me my microphone. I want it now. And it gives you credit for training your TCOs to do that.

[Jaz]
I think any dentist, any TCO, any therapist, hygienist, colleague who really cares about freeing up their time not to have to worry about what’s in their notes and what’s not in their notes, who actually generally wants their notes to be awesome.

This is a no-brainer. I think I’ve come to that conclusion now. And now that we’re have this conversation, I have one more idea that I know you’re going to jump on Adam. Okay. Here’s my idea. Okay. I used to use Google voice of text in the car, and I used to like come up with podcast ideas or I used to come up with like little chapters of things I was writing core scripts.

Whatever I was just dictating it to the phone. It was typing it a bit like otter and stuff as well. I was come back to it later and looking at the notes and actually, It would pick up when it’s the sound of the engine or it would pick up because it knows what that sounds like. If someone’s coughing, it would just come out like, some that it’s a distraction.

It comes up. So here is how DAN would look perfectly for me and how I envisaged to use it so that I can achieve my dream of doing the least amount of fingers to the keyboard as possible. And this is how it would work. So the sound of the suction is pretty universal, so as soon as the suction goes on, the voice recording will automatically just switch off.

Or be recorded, but later, the two hour file would become a 45 minute file because it would detect when conversations were had and therefore saving stories and saving memory. And therefore the AI in the future I know is very exciting for you Adam. The AI will then pick up, okay, this is the beginning.

This is the middle, this is the extra bit. This is the post-operative summary. It will just label them as well. It could do that, I imagine. And even if it just set up prompts inside that, okay, whenever dentist says postoperative summary, those words, then it will just start that. This is what the imagination I’m having. Do you think it’s a pipe dream or do you think this could happen?

[Adam]
So fundamentally that technology can be used to achieve what you’re saying? I think and like it can probably be done with technologies that exist right now and those technologies are only going to get better. The challenge that we will always solve first is privacy and security.

Cause we’re dealing with very personal sensitive information. So you could take the transcript and you could use a well known existing tool and say, summarize this, right? But you should not be putting your patient information through a web browser. Do things like that. So the scope around the med, and this is sort of the challenge for the medical world and which is why dentists I think, really need to be board in driving.

Where this goes is ultimately with technology, you can achieve almost anything you want to, given the resources and time and effort to get there. And you’ve just got to make sure that in the medical world and the dental world, it is done securely and responsibly. To get there-

[Ala]
Ethically.

[Adam]
And ethically as well. Absolutely. Just picking quickly on what you said about the indemnity providers, for example, the key sort of items that they raised for their satisfaction was that the recording isn’t adjunct to the written record and that it forms part of the patient record. So if, for example, you are recording a very long session of time, we should not delete the audio, even if it is just suction.

Because it’s part of the patient record at that point. But it’s quite easy to tag that audio. And so when listening back, you can pop over things, but the record is still there. And so it’s just the nuances of achieving that vision that satisfy gdpr, all the requirements of security in the US obviously, HIPAA and yeah, security and data privacy.

[Jaz]
And you guys are HIPAA compliant and stuff, right?

[Adam]
So yeah. HIPAA compliance is a process. We are working on that now. The security side is easily covered. And we’re working on that now.

[Jaz]
So, I mean, so that’s the next step. And so that leads me to the final question is where does the future hold? Cause I mean, really impressed with DAN so far. I love using my nurse loves it when I use my TMD consults and I’m only going to expand how I use it in the future. And I’m trying to, I’ll be pestering you a bit, Adam, I’m sorry about can you put this picture, can you do this for the transcript?

I think I’d like to help you give you feedback. You’ll probably hate me, but you know, I found something that I really like, I want to just mold it into, that’s going to be very selfishly, helping to achieve my dreams on not having to type as little as possible. But I do appreciate that you still need that human touch. And I understand that, but absolutely fine. It makes complete sense. But where do you think the future of DAN can evolve into?

[Adam]
Sorry, Jaz. I was just going to say that they’re getting feedback from users and being able to know that what you’re doing is in line with your customer base. I mean, as an engineer, you are really the person building a product for yourself. You’re always building it for other people. And so having feedback from users is like the most valuable thing that, and engineers crave it.

[Ala]
They really enjoy it. That’s just who that person is. You’re playing to his strengths there.

[Jaz]
And so before we talk about what the future hold, just tell us if a dentist wants to you do like a trial, right? If dentist wants to just try you guys out and I think encourage it, right? Just get a microphone and I think you guys talk about that in your videos. How to videos and get started. For the first demo couple of hours and see the transcript and see how it works. I think that’s a great place to start. How can they do that?

[Adam]
So, sign up at dentalaudionotes.com. Sign up, set your password, and then you can download the application. The software runs on your local practice PC. Plug in a mic. When you’re ready, press record. DAN then makes a secure audio recording of that conversation you have with your patient. And when you’re ready, you press stop. So, yeah. So DAN, obviously you play back, you can transcribe it and you can share with your patients. And we’ll give you 6 hours of recording for free just from the beginning just to get set up.

You are trying to get your setup right in the surgery. And yeah, from that point on, we’ve just started a summer offer for 30 pounds for 30 hours of recording for each month. 30 hours is, if you work five days a week, then that’s an hour and a half a day of recording.

[Jaz]
Just to give some context to someone who’s completely new to this. And Ala you can back me up cause you use this more than I have. At the beginning when I installed it, I just let the whole thing run for the last couple hours and you email me saying I’m the first person to just burn through like a couple of hours.

I sort of realize, yeah. Hang on a minute. Why am I recording the examination part? Because Zoe’s got my performer that I use and she’s got everything down anyway. So why am I recording that? So now, I record, like yesterday I used it, I don’t know if you saw this. It was a, because, I get my TMD patients to fill in a really elaborate history form.

Well, just between me and the patient. I’m just getting to know the patient and they’re summarizing the history form. That took eight minutes yesterday. And then the discussion at the end took nine minutes. So I had a 17 minute, audio file with DAN. And that for me covers everything. And I’ve got everything in the examination.

So if you think about three of those times six, 18 patients for that demo. I think dentists can have a real good use of it and develop it and learn about how to use it and how to use it, how to optimize it for themselves in their practice. So that’s a great deal. And how do they take advantage of this summer offer?

[Adam]
It’ll be available on our website, so we’re running it for the summer, so June, July, August. So sign up and get started in that time.

[Ala]
And I think it’s because we’re pretty confident that once people start understanding its power, then like it’s just going to change their lives. It really, I think you talking about vision for the future. I think vision for the future is that, audio recording becomes like photography, like the dentists who are any good, the dentists who are wanting to be good, the dentists who are caring about their patients and caring about their work and wanting to improve all the time, that they use audio recording, like they use photography.

So that’s our vision. We want it to be good value because that gives us pleasure and joy as well. we want it to be like, oh, this is a no-brainer. I don’t want finances to be a barrier for people. I want hygienists and therapists who are on their own to be able to use it if they want to. I want practices to be able to use it practice wide or just one nurse to use it.

[Jaz]
It is very amazing value. I just want to add in there for you it is incredible value, especially because it’s a tax deductible thing as well. It’s incredible value for what the technology that is, is novel. You could easily charge hundreds a month for it, but you come up very low offer cause you want everyone to get using it.

So I appreciate that and I just want to make it clear from in case anyone doesn’t know this, I have zero financial interest in your product. I’m not a stakeholder. I just love the product and I just want to speak to you, especially Ala because you are a Protruserati even connecting and I always like passing the ball to the Protruserati who are very geeky and really mean the best for their patients.

So that’s why we did this together because I want people to also use DAN and get to know it. And the more people that I start using it, the more feedback you get, I know the more it will develop as well. And this is just the beautiful beginning of it, this is the beginning of the story. The possibilities really are endless.

[Ala]
Yeah. Yeah.

[Adam]
This is the start of an exciting journey.

[Ala]
Yeah. I’m delighted that you’ve seen it clearly like that. It’s such a pleasure to speak about it when you know you’ve got it.

[Jaz]
Amazing. And I hope the Protruserati check it out and get the most of it. Guys, any final comments or words for those listening about the use of audio notes as the future and hopefully now the present of record keeping.

[Ala]
I really hope it’s enjoyable for people. I hope they enjoy stepping up and sitting up. And coming forwards into it, it’s a thing to step into and be like, right, I’m going to solve my record keeping.

I’m going to master it. It’s just like that feeling when you get your bonding sorted or when you get your crown prep sorted or where you get you are suddenly flying through rubber dam and all those kind of little bits of joy that you get. It’s just like that. And that’s what I hope that people will feel.

I really hope that they’ll get the benefit in their patient interactions because of that, and I really hope that means that if there are ever any challenges for anyone, any difficult things that happen, I hope that they can listen back to it with some either by themselves in their own time or with somebody that they can trust to give them good advice as to how best to proceed, whether that be somebody in their practice or whether that be their indemnity people provider.

And I really hope to be that support, that’s what DAN feels like for me. It’s like a support that’s looking after me, that’s got my back. And that’s what I hope to provide for dentists is that support that forward going, that improvement in consultations and yeah, just a bit of a little bit of joy.

[Jaz]
Amazing. And we didn’t actually talk about this, we talked about dentist leveling up their communication. But one thing that I think is worth mentioning is we do so many clinical courses. I always think we don’t do enough non-clinical stuff. And I think a really good non-clinical thing you could do with the aid of DAN is actually sitting with a principal or maybe even someone whose main thing is patient communication.

I will train you to be a better communicator with your patient. I’ll treat you to talk more confidently about smile design, wherever, and you sit with them. And then, you look through your what are your communication skills like in the moment. And then you implement new skills and three months later you listen back to your consultation and how much confident you are, how much of a better communicator you are.

And actually it’s a journey that you can go through to improve your communication. Just like when you start taking dental photography, you take photos and you depose a rubbish at the beginning and your dentistry rubbish at the beginning. And as your dentistry evolves and your photography techniques evolve, you improve in all aspects.

And so my only perhaps, your quality of the Dental Audio Notes will improve. But actually your patient communication, your conversion should improve only because you are more confident and you are saying the right level of information that the patient requires. Yeah.

[Ala]
So, some of the people who have been the most interested in using DAN have been those people who are dental coaches and mentors. So my mom is a dental coaching mentor. She was a dentist for a award-winning dentist for a long period of time. She’s really keen using it with her dentist because that’s how she can help them. We’ve had Barry Elton, who’s been really keen that we’ve had we’re very lucky. Adam and I are secretaries for Gloucestershire independent dentist.

So we have really the top speakers in the world who are, who come to help them who come and have dinner with us and stuff. It’s a incredibly privileged position that we’re in where we get to talk to people who are helping a lot of other people and they are seeing the value in that saying, I want to give this to my people.

I know that you are having a chat with Barry about how he can get this to his people so that he can help them. And it’d be really good if we can get that from that want from dentist saying, look, I’ve got this. Coach that I’m paying lots of money for, or I’ve got this amazing person in my practice who’s willing to give me a little bit of time and energy.

I want to use that in the best way possible. I want to have this recorded so that I can listen back and see where I can improve. But you know what? Even if you don’t have those people, just listen back to yourself. It’s a humbling experience. But it’s fun, but it’s humbling and it’s really you’ve said before, you hate listening back to yourself. It’s really cringey. I feel exactly the same.

[Jaz]
Yes. The first thing when I start a podcast is listening back to your own voice is cringe. But you earn to get through it.

[Ala]
You just get over it, don’t you? You’re just like, okay, it’s cringey. Let’s just carry on and get the value. Yeah. Yes, very much so.

[Jaz]
But I’ll be clear. Look for me, it was always, the transcript because I just really struggled getting everything down. And so DAN has really given me a new lease of life when it comes to my TMD consults, which is so complex that it really helps. So, thank you for making this brilliant product. I can’t wait to keep using it and helping you guys to develop it because I’ll be pestering you, Adam, with feedback to achieve my selfish goals.

[Ala]
We might pester you back for which microphones you were using because that’s our, one of our challenges is getting the audio quality good enough to get the transcript working right. So don’t worry, we’ll be perfect.

[Jaz]
So I think I’m using the same one as I’m same one, I’m using the same one as you, but I’m using the Rode go, right? What’s it called? The go mic. Go to.

[Ala]
The wireless go.

[Jaz]
The wireless go. It’s just nice not having any wires and stuff and it’s really good and looks swish as well. So yes, it’s not the cheapest, a couple hundred pounds, but you don’t have to start with that. I started with a cheap one first, but it just makes sense that if you do end up using DAN a lot, I just think it’s worth, again, it will be a tax deductible expense because it’s for your clinical clinic and I think it just makes sense to have really good crisp quality audio as well. I mean, what do you guys think about that?

[Adam]
Yeah, the audio quality is the number one effect on the quality of transcription. Right. That’s an transcription is an entirely automated process and you need to put quite good data in to get good data out. And that’s down to audio quality. It’s really easy with the cheap mic to get good enough audio quality that you can listen back when you need it.

So for that audio record backup, you can achieve that really easy.

[Ala]
With 15 pound mic.

[Adam]
Yeah. But to then, have the audio high enough for an automated system to pick out the words and transcribe it. Having a bluetooth wireless mic, like you were saying, is great because you can just position it in a really good location between you and the patient, and it’s small and it like, it’s not obvious.

Whereas if you have one that’s plugged in and it’s going to be on the side, it’s going to need to be a bit bigger and clunky and one of you will always have your back to it. So yeah, that’s a good step.

[Ala]
I think if anybody was worried about which mic to use, they should just contact us and we’ll just go through their setups. We’ve got a bit of experience in it now, so we can just help them with price point and-

[Jaz]
Of course.

[Ala]
Yeah, you’ve got any questions, just get in touch. Yeah.

[Jaz]
Amazing. And Adam’s been amazing at emailing and feedback and stuff in that regards. So guys, more power to you guys. I think you guys are doing an amazing thing for the profession and maybe in a couple of years time we’ll reconnect and see what’s new in DAN.

And it’s very exciting to be in your world at the moment. So, you have my full support. You have the full support of Protruserati.

[Ala]
Well, Jaz, you are coming to Gloucestershire independent dentists in January, right?

[Jaz]
It’s January right Ala?

[Ala]
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yes. So we’ll see you then anyway.

[Jaz]
We’ll see you then. Amazing. Fantastic. Well I’ll look forward to seeing you guys in the flesh. Until then, thank you so much for giving us your time and talking about this amazing new thing that you created.

[Ala]
Thank you so much. Thank for having us.

[Adam]
Thank you, Jaz.

Jaz’s Outro:
Well, there we have it guys. Check out dental audio notes, right? This is something that’s going to be a game changer in dentistry, I think. I think really improve our record keeping and it will level up your communication, just like we spoke about at the end. I want to say a thank you to Ala who’s been a Protruserati for the longest time and Adam for giving up their time.

And of course, if you are Protrusive Premium listener, you can answer a few questions to get CPD. Yes, this was verifiable for certificate because we talk about consent and communication. We don’t do enough CPD when it comes to the nonclinical thing, so this will add to your bucket of nonclinical education.

We’re back next week with a clinical episode. We’re doing part two of Pasquale Venuti next week about his preference for posts and why he prefers cast post crowns and generally Pasquale Venuti’s interesting restorative philosophies. But until then, have a lovely week. I’ll catch you then. Enjoy the weather wherever you are, if you’re in the UK.

Oh, and one more thing. If you’re enjoying the podcast, I would really appreciate it if you can give me a rating wherever you listen to Spotify, Apple, YouTube, whatever. Just say hello in the comments and leave us a rating. We really appreciate that. Thank you again. See you next week.