Dental Scheduling Software

After a cleaning at the dentist office, what do you do? You make the appointment for the next cleaning six months out. But it was different this time. Usually the receptionist would pull out the schedule book, flip it open to a page scan for an opening, offer you a couple choices and write it down in the book. The whole process used to take, about thirty seconds. Not this time. The office had cut over to a computerized appointment system.

I couldn't see the screen, but for some reason I started counting clicks. There went six clicks in rapid succession, and I thought to myself, she just clicked once for each month to go out six months. Then things slowed down, and it was click, scan, click, scan this went on for a while. I guessed that was day by day scanning for an open slot in the morning (my preference). Finally she offered me a choice, which I declined. Some more click, scan, clicking. Another potential appointment, which I accepted. A bunch of typing followed. Then she wrote down my new appointment on a card and handed it to me. The whole process took x5 longer than pencil and scheduling book. And I'm thinking, who designed this thing? They failed.

The Mobile Stare

This past week I noticed something new while commuting on the train. Is it me? Or are there suddenly a whole lot of people all looking down, staring at their mobile phones? And I'm not talking about dialing, they're reading.

For the past month or so the weather's been pretty nice so I've been commuting by bike almost exclusively. Then this week we had several days of on again off again showers so I've been doing my Caltrain/VTA lightrail commute. Did everyone buy new, bigger screen mobile phones in the past couple months? It's the strangest thing.