New Patient Education Platform and Tablet App Makes Communication Effortless

Many doctors are familiar with the look of apprehension, or even anxiety, that washes over a patient's face during case presentation.

For patients, it’s often the result of not being able to clearly visualize their conditions and the potential consequences of inaction, especially on more complex cases. It’s a critical juncture in the doctor-patient relationship that could either leave a patient struggling for answers or thrilled to proceed with clearly illustrated treatment recommendations, which leads to greater long-term satisfaction with the practice.

Spear’s new Patient Education platform and tablet app gives doctors and their teams a powerful digital tool with scores of research-based, clinical videos that make complicated oral health details easy for the average person to grasp.

With Patient Education, doctors can stream videos chairside via the tablet app or to the monitors in their waiting room via Fire TV Stick or Apple TV. Other features include:

• The ability to annotate videos for specific cases. Pause videos on the tablet app and use a drawing tool to make key callouts with a couple swipes of a finger.

• An email and text function that enables a doctor or team member to instantly share treatment recommendations with patients to review on their laptop or mobile device.
   
• A custom print sheet function that provides instant handouts, including post-op instructions, that patients can carry home to learn how to protect their investment.

• Online embed codes to easily place videos on your practice website. Videos are also subtitled to be American Dental Association compliant.

Lobby videos that run unobtrusively in the background, providing clear overviews of common dental issues to help prepare patients for their time in the operatory. 

Spear has always taken an empirical approach to its development of dental education resources. In the past three years, surveys about the Patient Education platform and app confirmed the need for doctors to provide patients with a tool that allows them to “see” what is happening in their mouth.  

For example, a survey of 500 patients who were shown a Patient Education video on gingival recession revealed that more than 90 percent wanted to understand treatment and payment options.

A subsequent survey of 400 patients also confirmed that more than 90 percent would move forward with treatment for a cracked tooth after viewing a Patient Education lobby video that clearly indicates how the common dental issue could lead to more significant issues if untreated.   

With nearly 200 animated videos designed by multimedia experts in conjunction with world-renowned Spear faculty, Patient Education ensures credibility and engagement, helping doctors remove any friction from the informed consent process.

If you have a Spear Online membership, visit https://patient.speareducation.com to download the app, while non-members can visit https://www.speareducation.com/patient-education to learn more about this key component of Spear Online — the digital platform Dental Product Shopper recently named “Best Product.”