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The team from Dental Care Ireland in Castlebar, Co Mayo
The Dental Care Ireland team from Kells, Co Meath
Continued » “We can provide a good, supportive
organisational structure to work with those dentists. There will be increasing requirements in terms of compliance on dentists in the years ahead and many of the dentists will have to invest in their practices, so we feel that the timing is good in terms of creating a group of dental practices.” To date, Dental Care Ireland has
partnered with a number of dental practices, including clinics in Castlebar, Co Mayo; Kells, Co Meath; two practices in Cabinteely and Knocklyon in Dublin; and a practice in Tullamore, Offaly. The company is also on track to help more practices in the coming months and hopes to expand its national footprint significantly in 20ı6. “We always like the practitioners to stay
on with us for anything from two years to five years, or substantially longer. The longer the better,” Colm explained. “The practitioners are very supportive because it enables them to realise some value for their lifetime’s work. They can remain practicing as a dentist for a period of time, in many cases easing into retirement. Also, they can see that the practice may need an investment or a fresh approach and they are happy to work with us to continue the long-term development of their practice. “In addition to people coming close to
retirement, there are younger dentists who dislike the business and administrative side of things and these dentists could remain with us in the much longer term.” Coupled with taking over the hassles
associated with running your own busi- ness, Dental Care Ireland also invests in the practice in areas such as new equipment, for example, and provides professional marketing and public relations. It will also look after the raft of compliance issues on the way as a result of new dental legislation to replace the ı985 Dental Act.
50 Ireland’s Dental magazine
Our strategy is to acquire and invest in existing, strong local dental practices and help to develop them into the future
Colm said: “We will run the practices on
a day to day basis so the practitioner can focus on seeing patients.” There are also numerous benefits to be
gained by patients as Dental Care Ireland offers competitive prices, longer opening hours and a modern high-quality and patient-centred service. “Patients will get a more consistent
and more standardised approach. We will invest in terms of the facilities, equipment and standards ensuring that they are always at the top level,” Colm added. Dr Kieran Davitt is Clinical Advisor
to Dental Care Ireland and, as a working dentist with a busy practice in Galway, is all too aware that dentistry in Ireland is changing in more ways than one. Like Colm, Kieran believes Dental Care
Ireland can play a vital role in supporting dentists with the business side of their practices, an area that few were trained in. He explained: “When we go to college
we get training on clinical issues but we are not really trained on running a busi- ness, or management, or dealing with HR. Long-time dentists haven’t really had to deal with it because there wasn’t that much legislation but, with the new Dental Act that is coming in, there are more and more regulations all the time. I find that in my own practice I spend much more time now away from the dental chair than I would have five or ten years ago.
“If you ask any dentist what they are
most comfortable with, they will probably tell you that seeing their patients, treating their patients and practising their dentistry is what they are happiest doing. What gives them real headaches and stress would be the extra stuff on the side, like the admin- istration and all the other things that they are probably not used to, or trained to do.” Dental Care Ireland therefore can come
in and take over the headache of adminis- tration, leaving dentists to their clinical work and their patients.
A TOP TEAM TO TRUST
Colm Davitt (above) is CEO of Dental Care Ireland. He established the company in October 2014 in order to create an Irish-run group of dental practices with a real focus on quality. Colm has extensive knowledge of the healthcare environment, having spent seven years working with Euromedic, Ireland’s leading chain of medical scan centres, who now service the needs of 125,000 patients each year. Dr Kieran Davitt, BDentSc, graduated from Trinity College Dublin in 1997 and is Dental Care Ireland’s Clinical Advisor.
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