Creating a positive culture at a dental practice could be the key to its success, according to Abdallah Awada, DDS.
Dr. Awada opened a ClearChoice Dental Implant Center office May 30 in Ann Arbor, Mich. He recently spoke with Becker's about his goals for the new office, how dental implants are evolving and the skills practice owners need to be effective leaders.
Editor's note: Responses were lightly edited for clarity and length.
Question: How have the first few days been at your new office?
Dr. Abdallah Awada: It feels good to finally connect with the community. It's been one of the things I've been eager to get to the most, to meet the people of the city and the surrounding areas. So far it's been very pleasant. I can tell there's a huge need for the services we offer in this area and just getting to know those patients and making sure we meet their needs. It's been great so far.
Q: What went into the two-year planning process for this practice?
AA: It involves multiple layers of planning, from the typical things you would expect, such as identifying a prime location for the practice, making sure it suits our needs, to designing the center. We've put a lot of thought into how the center layout is with a significant focus on the patient experience at all levels, whether our patient is coming to see us for a consultation, a surgery or a follow-up, which are three very different approaches to how they would utilize the center. We work diligently to make sure any of those categories of patients are going to get a good experience in the center. It doesn't come randomly. It takes a lot of intentional planning and follow up. That's a big chunk of what those two years entailed.
Q: What are you most looking forward to accomplishing at your new office?
AA: One of my primary visions for the center is, first and foremost, to serve our community in Ann Arbor and the surrounding areas around our office but to serve them in a way that allows our patients to have access to high-quality dental implant care that is run by specialists at a very high level, with a significant level of adoption of digital technologies. That angle specifically is what I'm looking forward to the most at the center. I've designed the center from the ground up to leverage all this technology. The goal of using this technology above all else is precision and predictability of treatment, being able to deliver as exact as possible what we are promising our patients. Another side effect of leveraging this digital technology is it's going to make our patient journey more comfortable, more timely for them with a quicker time to their finals without compromising on the quality of the care.
Q: What kind of technology is being used at the practice?
AA: Some of the latest technology we utilize are very standard for us as ClearChoice centers. They may not be standard for other centers, such as 3D imaging and [cone beam computed tomography]. That definitely exists with us, but some of the things I'm most excited about are in-house production equipment such as 3D printers and a very heavy reliance on intraoral scanning over traditional impression capture techniques. We are very heavy into integrating those two aspects together as well as integrating precision digital photography in order to create virtual smile designs for the patient, not only to create those designs, but to be able to transition those designs into the treatment planning phase of treatment. As we get to experience what this new smile will look like with the patient and we get their engagement and approval of it, I can transfer that information with high precision to my digital design software and be able to accomplish that for the patient.
Q: What are some key skills that you feel are required to be a successful practice owner in today's industry?
AA: Besides the obvious skills needed that everybody would agree upon — a strong understanding of the treatment you're providing, a very high level of skill in treatment planning, as well as treatment execution — I feel like those tend to be givens for most providers going in. However, what tends to be missed significantly or left for chance is how intentional you have to be about the culture you're creating at your center. If you plan to be a successful, growing healthcare practice, too often this gets left to chance or to individual dynamics in the center. Having a very intentional approach about what your practice should stand for, how it treats its patients, how it treats its team members, what level of care it is providing and what matters to us the most is a huge predictor of success and growth for a practice.
Lastly, I would say a healthy appetite for innovation and growth from a treatment planning, treatment option perspective. I think in today's world, it's important for us to realize how dynamically evolving the landscape is when it comes to treatment options and modalities for patients and new technologies coming out that help improve on those two things. I stress the phrase "healthy appetite." I wouldn't say an unhindered appetite because at the end of the day, our patients look to us as their providers to be the stewards of innovation and to be able to deliver on innovation and treatment improvement while still protecting the patient's best interests. So having that approach and having that appetite and desire for this innovation is key in this time in dentistry.
Q: When you say culture, what does that include?
AA: Culture tends to be summarized by how a patient feels when they're in the practice, or how a team member feels when they're in the practice. That's the end result of culture, but to get there, culture involves, most importantly, our values, our operating principles as an office and being intentional about setting those things. I see those two things as being the constitution upon which everybody in the center agrees to work. If that is not set or left for randomness, it could sometimes be in alignment between the team and the doctor, but it would only happen randomly. If we are intentional about it, it is basically every single member of the team deciding who we are, what we stand for and how our actions every day are going to fulfill that. It ends up being visible, not just for the team, but for the patients as well as they see how we behave and they see the alignment of the behavior. At the end of the day, my belief is that patients want to find a place where they feel seen, cared for, are treated at the highest level and provided with the care they deserve. In our world of implant dentistry, we have to understand that there's a great level of fear for our patients coming in and we really can't overlook the importance of making that patient feel better in the situation they're in.
Q: Why do you think culture is sometimes left to chance?
AA: I think it's a systemic issue. Dentists aren't trained to look for that. I've been in academia and I've had the privilege to train and instruct future generations of prosthodontists. It is not something that gets mentioned as much, equally as much as you hear a lot of dentists graduating and getting into the workforce and saying, "We didn't get trained on how to run a dental practice." We know the dentistry to do. We know how to diagnose. We know what to do in the interest of the patient, but the actual management of the office is not something dentists get visibility on. Culture as an important cornerstone of a practice is also not something that gets covered. It more often than not just falls onto chance, whether we luck out and have a team that aligns well and a leader that conveys their vision clearly and sticks to it, or we don't and it just ends up being luck of the draw.
Q: How do you see implant dentistry evolving in 2024?
AA: I can tell you, at least from my perspective and from the perspective I'm seeing at the ClearChoice Dental Implant Centers, the biggest evolutionary step happening in 2024 and beyond is the push for digital integration. As far as implant dentistry treatment is concerned, there's been some great strides that have come in the last year or two. I expect more to happen in the coming year or two, whether it's with regard to the treatment planning process and transitioning a treatment plan design into reality with as much of a one-to-one accuracy as possible, down to the production trends and how we are building and making our temporary and even final restorations. A lot of great materials have either just recently hit the market or are about to. These are the things I keep a very close eye on being somebody that's come from academia and research as well, looking into the material science and the technical background behind all of these innovations, so we can contribute to the innovation, vet the innovation and be able to apply the innovation to our patients safely, successfully, and let them reap the benefits of it in a timely manner.