ipad with the ebook, 'Getting Started with Team Training' on the screen.

Over the past year, dentistry went through a lot of change, and so did your practice team with shutdowns, re-openings, furloughs, social distancing, and anticipation of a COVID-19 vaccine – not to mention the economic impact on individual practices.

Behind every great dental practice is an exceptional team with a common goal and collective focus on the same vision. An aligned team simply achieves more for the practice with better performance, more consistent production, and supportive patient communication.

Recent enhancements to the Spear Online platform, including updates to the new Spear Online mobile app, make your entire team's use of the entire Spear learning ecosystem more intuitive and efficient.

Now you can empower your senior team leaders in a Practice Delegate role and address team challenges through new Resident Faculty Recommendations learning pathways – new functions that are streamlined through the mobile app.

In a time when efficiency is everything, and every member of the practice team needs to feel comfortably connected to their roles, these digital features are just a click away.

The Practice Delegate – a power role for senior dental practice staff

It's difficult to be fully committed to something we don't personally connect with. That's why getting a practice team to buy into team training initiatives comes down to getting them personally invested in the overall vision.

Practice Delegate(s) gain enhanced access to the Spear Online platform to take a more active role in aligning the entire practice team. This way your team is better equipped to implement Spear resources to increase case acceptance, emphasize clinical best practices, and more.

Assigning a Practice Delegate(s) also helps save time, improve follow-ups, and empower your senior team leaders with a clear command of the content available on Spear Online. Simply designate one or more team members a role of Practice Delegate through your Spear Online profile so they can manage team members and assign role-based coursework on your behalf.

For members, to establish this enhanced Spear Online access, log into Spear Online, navigate to the My Team section, and designate one or more of your team members as a Practice Delegate. Their enhanced access to Spear Online enables them to:

  • Add, edit, and remove practice team members from Spear Online.
  • Assign role-based courses and pathways to team members.
  • Utilize Spear Online curriculum for streamlined team training.
  • Track team progress with assigned courses and content.

Assigning a Practice Delegate makes it possible to empower those managing your team (like office managers or team leads) to take a more active role in team training and practice alignment.

Doctors can assign specific delegates to oversee specific teams, like clinical or front office, or assign just one team member as a Delegate to manage all practice team training.

Straight from the experts - 'Resident Faculty Recommendation' pathways

New access to faculty-curated courses and content helps you and the entire practice team make the most of Spear Online with “Resident Faculty Recommendations.”

These pathways focus attention on recommended courses, team meetings, and other multimedia to address team challenges.

One of the first curated pathway playlists comes from Dr. Ricardo Mitrani, based on his recent Spear Digest article “Creating a New Vision for Your Dental Practice.” Dr. Mitrani shares recommended team meetings to motivate every member of your team toward practice growth.

Use these recommended team meetings to implement a follow-up strategy, effectively communicate with patients who choose to delay treatment and other subjects.

Members can find these curated playlists in the Pathways section of Spear Online. With so much changing so quickly for practices through the COVID-19 pandemic, these pathways are a great way to get timely learning recommendations from our experts.

Spear Online mobile app – dental CE multimedia in the palm of your hand

Online learning is more crucial than ever when it comes to professional development in 2021.

Make sure you, your Practice Delegate, and all members of the practice team take full advantage of Spear's learning ecosystem by downloading or updating the Spear Online mobile app.

The app updates provide Spear Online members with efficient mobile access to check on the entire team's training and CE progress with assigned courses and clinical topics that are most relevant to the individual practice. Enhancements include:

  • The ability to download CE courses and lessons to learn on the go, or whenever Wi-Fi is unavailable, for a richer learning experience that mirrors your desktop learning while traveling.
  • The option to add enhanced team details and track your practice's progress directly through the app.
  • And a forgot-password update that is now faster and more streamlined.

Clinicians and Practice Delegates can quickly check on team training progress, bookmark courses to complete later, view Spear's calendar of upcoming seminars and campus workshops, and download courses to view offline – even when you don't have internet access.