Maintaining X-Ray Machines in Dental Offices

In a recent post I compared AC and DC x-ray machines, and focused in on one of the differences – consistency at short exposure times. Of course, consistency isn’t only important in short exposure times, but also in long exposure times.

As a dental office grows and ages, x-ray machines are often added and replaced; the new x-rays are usually not the same type as the existing machines. Over time, dental clinics end up with a wide variety of x-ray machines, and often, image inconsistencies from operatory to operatory. Thankfully, this is easy to fix.

Your service technician likely has access to a few x-ray test tools, such as an exposure timer, kVp meter, and mR meter. I will spare you the detailed technical discussion of the process; but your technician can actually go from room to room, recording data about your x-ray exposures, and make adjustments to the machines to ensure consistent radiation entrance dosages from room to room.

Sometimes, adjustments can be made internally to the machines, while sometimes the timer will simply have to be adjusted. This may mean different timer settings in each room: for example, Op 1 might have a bitewing setting of .18s, Op 2 .20 seconds, and Op 3 .25 seconds.

In my experience, this isn’t much of an inconvenience; most people seem to use one timer setting for the vast majority of their exposures anyway. For those who do change timer settings frequently, a simple printed label stuck on the front of the x-ray will tell you the proper setting for that room. And of course, a machine with a programmable timer makes this all automatic.

An entire 5 operatory practice can likely have this work performed in anywhere from 1 to 3 hours, depending on the type of x-ray machines in the clinic. For a relatively small cost, you can make dramatic improvements in the diagnostic capability of your office.

Posted by Ryan