Finland’s largest dental care chain relies on Planmeca Romexis® dental imaging solution
Easy image handling and storage is essential to a smooth workflow at the dental office. However, for larger multi-site clinic chains, it’s not always that simple. Systems vary, data is stored on multiple servers and different software solutions just won’t talk to each other. So how can clinic chains be sure that their patient images are accessible both reliably and in real time – at every single clinic?
In October 2019, Oral Hammaslääkärit were asking themselves the same question. Oral is the largest private dental care chain in Finland, with close to 70 clinics all across the country. At the same time, size also comes with its challenges.
”Back then, we actually had quite a few different software systems as a result of mergers with other clinics,” Petteri Pasanen, Head of IT at Oral Hammaslääkärit, explains. “We had a number of local servers, different versions of Romexis and its predecessor Dimaxis as well as software from other manufacturers. You name it, we had it.”
Consequently, a change was in order. However, this immediately raised a new question: how to choose the right software platform for Oral? In the end, the best solution for them was a centralised Planmeca Romexis® database.
13 TB of image data – and counting
Today, all Oral clinics use a single centralised Romexis database, where its more than 300 concurrent users have access to the clinics’ approximately 3.8 million dental images. All clinical images, from 2D and 3D X-rays to digital impressions, are stored in one and the same database. Once there, the images are available seamlessly and simultaneously at more than 60 Oral clinics – no matter where they are.
The database runs on a high-performance and secure Microsoft cloud server to enable optimisation of server resources and, all in all, houses a stunning 13 TB of data.
According to Pasanen, the decision to switch completely over to Romexis was ultimately easy to make. On the one hand, some Oral clinics already had a well-functioning Romexis solution for their patient images. On the other, the company was impressed by both the software and the support from the Finnish dental supply house Plandent.
“Romexis is surely the most well-known and widely used imaging software in Finland, so in that sense it was already a no-brainer,” Pasanen says, “but the interest and willingness to be part of this project at both Planmeca and Plandent also made a big difference.”
Open solution offers many options for integration
If choosing the right solution was relatively easy, the same cannot quite be said of migrating more than 60 clinics to one database. According to Pasanen, 16 Oral clinics were already using a centralised Romexis database at the time. This meant that the patient images of more than 50 clinics had to be converted to a single Romexis database – on a very tight schedule.
Both Plandent and Romexis were up to the challenge, however. The 3-tier architecture of Romexis utilises an application server for processing, a standard database for metadata and a file system for image data. As a result, Romexis can be implemented in on-premises, virtual server or customer-hosted cloud environments and offers migration paths for many imaging software systems. Additionally, the software comes with many features which can help customers meet national PHI requirements, such as GDPR and HIPAA.
In April 2020, after a seven-month long push, the centralised database at Oral Hammaslääkärit was up and running on a cloud server in a Microsoft server room.
“The support has been amazing, and we’ve been giving thanks left and right,” Pasanen says. “Converting the old databases was a tremendous effort, but the Plandent team worked day and night to accommodate our schedules – even when changes came at a short notice.”
All data in every location
According to Pasanen, the most important features of the new Romexis system is the fast and wide availability of the dental images across the Oral network. “Our users have been really happy that the system finally works as it should and the old problems have gone away. And, of course, the fact that the images can be accessed in all our locations benefits both our clinicians and our customers.”
Though the migration project was completed in Spring 2020, spirits remain high at Oral. In addition to the new dental imaging solution, the personnel at Oral also received comprehensive training in using the system and software. “The Plandent team worked really hard to make sure that the job gets done. All in all, this has been a great success story for everyone involved.”
Did you know that Planmeca Romexis®...?
- is an all-in-one software platform with many specialty modules in one and the same software
- is based on open standards, which allows importing and exporting data in standard formats as well as integration with most patient management systems
- can also be used as a dental PACS to store and retrieve images from 3rd party imaging software
- provides industry-standard security and encryption, as regularly verified by outside security experts
- comes with features which help customers meet national PHI regulations, such as GDPR and HIPAA
- product development follows international standards, such as ISO/IEC 27005 and IEC/TR 80001-2-2.
Copy: Aleksandra Nyholm
Images: Dino Azinur
Planmeca Oy and Planmeca Group
Planmeca Oy is one of the world's leading dental equipment manufacturers with a product range covering digital dental units, CAD/CAM solutions, world-class 2D and 3D imaging devices and comprehensive software solutions. Headquartered in Helsinki, Finland, Planmeca’s products are distributed in over 120 countries worldwide. With a strong commitment to pioneering innovations and design, it is the largest privately held company in its field. Planmeca Oy is part of the Finnish Planmeca Group, which operates in the field of healthcare technology. The Group's turnover in 2019 was MEUR 770, and it employs nearly 2,800 people worldwide.
www.planmeca.com
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