We recently hosted four dental tech CEOs (well, technically three CEOs and one founder) on Dental Rift. Naturally, the conversation turned to PMS platforms and the all-important question: Will there ever be a single app to take care of everything a dental practice needs?
After all, practice owners — and their teams — are understandably frustrated with the current state of affairs. Nobody likes having to figure out how to incorporate a dozen or more separate programs into their practice tech stack.
Doing so costs time, sleep, and money, and who has any to spare?
But right now, that’s the way it is. So when can we expect things to change?
That’s a tricky question to answer. The truth is that building the ultimate PMS platform is complicated. Really, really complicated.
Just to give one example of the challenges faced by dental tech entrepreneurs: when creating a PMS, you have to decide if you’re going to build something entirely original and self-contained or take a more modular approach and integrate existing dental apps together in one UX-friendly package.
Go with option A and you’ll have more control and potentially, a smoother user experience. But you’ll also be much less flexible because you can’t possibly design one all-in-one platform that meets every use case.
Option B makes more sense then, right? Go modular or go home. Except… if you’re bringing together a bunch of different apps under one roof, you’ll have a much harder time creating consistency — and risk ending up creating a situation that’s just as complicated as before.
Consider, too, that the needs of a general dentist are going to be quite different than those of a practice focusing on implants and oral surgery — and different again from an orthodontist — and you begin to get just a taste of what PMS developers are trying to overcome on their quest to build a platform that meets the requirements of all three while also being simple to use.
We don’t know if and when that holy grail will finally arrive, but we do hope to see it happen.
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