Parkell Podcast-Chat: Clinical Innovation with DuraTip – Using Ultrasonics Well: Efficiency, Ergonomics, and Patient Comfort

And Rich, please tell me what problem in the dental hygiene world did DuraTip solve?

Well, thank you for asking that question.

Uh, basically all ultrasonic inserts have a similar characteristic of wear performance.

What that means is as a tip wears down as little as one millimeter, the sweep of the amplitude drops 25%.

When it loses two millimeters of wear, the sweep drops 50%.

In the DuraTip, I designed the DuraTip to have a uniform energy transfer throughout its service life.

The service life of a DuraTip, what makes it different, is it has like-new performance over a full three millimeters of wear.

That means-

That's incredible

... as the tip wears down, the sweep stays uniform.

It also has a non-reflective surface which decreases eye strain, and all DuraTips, uh, can be used at all power settings.

For, so from a clinical standpoint, that's something that I really like because, you know, we have to try to memorize, and, and again, you know, people are using two, uh, they could be using two different technologies, uh, but related to people who are using Magneto in particular, the, the manufacturers will say, "Well, this particular tip needs to be low to medium," or, uh, you know, "This tip you can use all the way up to high." And so as a clinician, you have to start memorizing, "What can I do? When can I do it? What's the clinical application?" And we have so much on our minds, we're multitasking, we're doing so many things at the same time, and doing it very well as being medical professionals and being able to take in all this information and to deliver appropriate care for our patients.

But I, I always say like, "Gosh, wouldn't it be nice if I could just use the insert on any power level I wanted to whenever I wanted to?" And the answer to that is yes.

And so-

So you're not changing the inserts that you can use at those power levels.

You have the same insert, and all you have to do is change the power level.

Right.

And, and within the procedure if I wanna change it, yes, I can-

Wow

...

I can do that.

And so that, that makes it, uh, much easier for me to then stay engaged with the patient, deliver the care, concentrate on the root morphology, concentrate on the instrumentation and what I'm doing so that I'm not thinking about, "Oh, my gosh, well, what color is this insert grip, and what power setting do I use it on? Uh, I don't know." Um, and of course, we do know from our education that if you use, um, an insert, um, or if you're using Piezo, um, you know, and a tip, if you use it outside of the power range that the engineers designed it for, what the risk is is tip fracture.

None of us want to ever, ever, ever have tip fracture.

So having that confidence level of I can use it on any power setting I want, ready, set, scale, go.

So it, it just, it does make it a lot easier for the clinician.