Over the past two decades, high-speed internet has become crucial to effective business operations. Data backup, storage, exchange, and analytics are nearly impossible without a strong high-speed internet connection. As internet speeds are increasing, and remote access is becoming an integral part of the patient experience, a dental office without an excellent internet connection could potentially lose its competitive edge.
Let’s take a closer look at the benefits of how a high-speed internet connection could benefit your dental practice:
1. Save Money and Time
When your internet is running slow, the page you are trying to load,or the email you are trying to deliver, might take more time to process than if your internet was fully optimized. In the dental industry, time is money, and when your employees are in the process of exchanging images and videos, they will need access to high-speed internet.
Dental office administrators and dentists who use high-speed internet for professional purposes (e.g., research, patient communication, and accessing the business network) can spend up to four hours a day on these tasks. This can turn into thousands of wasted dollars annually, and while employees in your dental office are waiting for large image and video files to load, they are losing valuable time that could be spent on revenue-generating tasks. Additionally, a slow internet connection could raise frustration levels for your staff and negatively affect the workplace environment. That is why it is important to always make sure to have the most up to date high-speed internet connection, so your employees can do their job quickly and efficiently, while saving you money in the process.
2. Support More Internet-Connected Devices
Even a small dental office can have dozens of devices. From waiting room TVs that stream Netflix movies, to employee smartphones and office computers, the more hardware you have in your network, the more pressure you are putting on your internet connection. To make sure all of them work properly, it’s imperative to implement a high-speed internet connection that can support running all of these devices at once without any interference.
If one of these devices doesn’t connect, you could be losing time and money, while hindering your practice’s reputation and missing out on technological improvements at the same time. Every year, new technologies are developed that make dental office’s cybersecurity services more and more effective. Taking advantage of these technologies requires interconnected devices and a high-speed internet connection to ensure that your internet is always running fast and smooth.
3. More Reliable Data Backup and Recovery
Data backup and recovery plans are essential to the high functioning operation of your dental office. It is also necessary for you to implement backup and recovery measures to ensure HIPAA compliance, especially if you are using an EHR system. When you are backing up a large amount of data, a slow internet connection could make the process long and tedious. If for some reason, the connection fails, and you need to start all over, the backup could take days.
If you are backing up your data while other employees are using the internet for professional purposes, then the network speed could drop significantly, causing business to stall and hinder your dental office’s operation. Although, even if you have a robust security system in place, security breaches and force majeure circumstances are still possible. If something happens, and you need to recover data, a slow internet connection could cause your business significant problems and downtime.
4. Improved Remote Access
If your dental office is using cloud technologies, it’s reaping substantial benefits of remote access for doctors and other employees. High-speed internet allows you to share images, x-rays, documents, and other data with your team remotely. This could be crucial to making the right diagnosis and preventing treatment delays to patients.
With COVID-19, remote consultations, teledentistry, and virtual patient care have become the new normal for many people. Without high-speed internet, effective remote data access and virtual communications are nearly impossible. Another important benefit of a high-speed internet connection and improved remote access for your dental office is patient satisfaction. If your internet works well, patients won’t face delays when scheduling visits, waiting for a diagnosis, or making payments and will leave their appointments feeling satisfied with your service.
Looking to Improve Your Internet?
The benefits of high-speed internet for your dental practice are hard to overlook. Since the importance of stellar internet connection is growing exponentially, failing to implement it could cause you to lose market share. If you would like to improve your internet and gain access to new growth and development opportunities, consider contacting one of our IT professionals at Erickson Dental Technologies today to schedule an assessment today.
