An Interview with Dental Resource Systems, Inc.
John Harris, President
INSIDE DENTISTRY (ID): How do you define your approach to product integration and customer service?
John Harris (JH): Dental Resource Systems, Inc. (DRS) supplies complete equipment and training for identifying, assessing, and treating dental-force–related disorders. Imbalanced or improper dental forces often result in symptoms of chronic headaches, migraines, and temporomandibular joint dysfunction. To be truly complete, we have developed teaching modules and hands-on methods that are simple and have allowed hundreds of dentists and their team members to easily master our system through clinical workshops at major US dental schools. In fact, our system is designed for use first by the dentists to objectively assess dentomandibular sensorimotor dysfunction, then by the dental team to provide the rehabilitation therapy.
Although we pride ourselves on bringing the best-of-breed hardware and software solutions for assessing and treating dental-force–related problems, all our products are backed by world-class training and support. In particular, DRS provides both technical assistance for the use of our products and ongoing support for business practice integration.
ID: What are your company’s main advantages? How are they unique?
JH: We provide the only system that enables dentists to objectively assess and predictably treat dental-force–related conditions. The system enables doctors to actually show patients the potential causes of their symptoms and provide measureable results after a single treatment.
TruDenta was developed by practitioners and industry experts who understand what’s required to grow a practice. It’s based on this understanding that we’ve developed and subsequently provide the support and knowledge necessary to be both clinically and financially successful with TruDenta.
TruDenta methods are unique in their approach to dental-force management. We believe in restoring the dynamic soft-tissue system first. Unless this system performs properly, no hard-tissue adjustment—regardless of the occlusal philosophy that a dentist follows—will achieve the proper, balanced results. Once TruDenta treatments have achieved functional and dynamic optimization, then the mechanical aspects of occlusion can be successfully addressed.
ID: If you had to rank the most important elements of your success, what would they be and why?
JH: After patient treatment success rates, we are most proud of our simply implemented technologies. The proprietary combination of TruDenta system technologies is based completely upon FDA-cleared and proven modalities and methods detailed in thousands of pages of literature, from both the dental and sports medicine worlds. The assessment and treatment technologies used in TruDenta have been awarded multiple patents. These technologies enable most of TruDenta care to be provided by trained team members and require very little doctor time investment.
ID: What inspires the forward motion of your company in today’s marketplace?
JH: We are driven by research, knowledge, and the increasing awareness by healthcare professionals and patients that there is an oral–systemic association. This association naturally suggests application of proven medical therapies to treat parts of the body—when, where, and how appropriate—to treat similar problems affecting the dentofacial structures.
Many of the technologies and treatment modalities used in the TruDenta system were originally developed to treat injuries to the muscles, nerves, ligaments, and tendons of professional athletes. Because many of the issues associated with dental force and dentomandibular function are similar, we have successfully combined the expertise of dental practitioners with sports medicine technology as part of our treatment methods.
We’re motivated by re-establishing soft-tissue support and the adaptive mechanism, which is the first step for dynamic and functional correction. We truly believe this is the foundation for long-term predictability and stability of subsequent mechanical treatments (ie, restorations). Without a combination approach, the body will never be truly balanced and comfortable through all of the uses of the mouth.
