When the dentist prepares to take an impression of your teeth for crowns, she/he packs thick threads around your teeth to dry the gum tissues.  This can be painful and traumatic.  We have embraced a new technology from France, called Expa-sil; which is a soft and gentle drying putty that works in tandem with our hydrophilic impression materials to create incredibly accurate and comfortable impressions of your teeth.  This material is far more expensive than the cords that are traditionally packed into the gum tissues;  but the benefit in the health of your gum tissues, and the accuracy and precision of your dental work is absolutely worth it.

The most common reason for a crown to "go bad" is poor or average impression techniques by your dentist.  Dr. Hart guarantees every crown and bridge that he provides.

We have always been a bicycling oriented office;  Dana Vicker and her husband race bikes, as well as former employee Jamie Sturges and Dr. Hart.  We believe in Lance Armstrong as a hero of character and self determination.  Check out 2002 Superweek Pictures by following this link:  Superweek, 2002

We now use European electric drive instruments.  These are the quietest handpieces available, because they do not use air (hence, no "screaming, whining" sound, because they use a smooth electric micro-motor).

We have installed operating microscopes from Zeiss corporation.  The most critical aspect of creating a long lasting crown (or cap) is to make sure the seal between the crown and your teeth is as close to perfect as possible.  In order to achieve this goal, Dr. Hart always completes each crown procedure under high magnification under a microscope.  The microscopes he uses are the same that an ENT physician uses to perform delicate throat surgery.

We have remodeled our office by adding one additional treatment room (mostly for BriteSmile), and creating a bright, comfortable, and consistent environment.  For the sake of asepsis (cleanliness), we have replaced all treatment room carpeted floors with hard wood floors.  All countertops have been replaced with SSV surfaces to improve surface disinfection. We replaced the ceiling with a color balanced tiling system, and installed daylight-balanced lighting.  All conventional faucets were replaced with infrared, "touchless" faucets.  Soap dispensers are now touchless, too

After studying several in-office tooth whitening systems (chemical with trays, laser, gas plasma, and high intensity light emitting diodes), we have implemented the BriteSmile high intensity LED system.  We feel this system is the best because it is the safest (because of the lack of high temperature influence on the teeth) and fastest way to lighten your teeth in one visit.  Dr. Hart was one of the first patients at our office to receive this treatment (and he's quite happy with it!)  Please click here for more information.

We are currently in the process of implementing 3 very significant improvements to the care we offer you!  They involve, in the order in which they will occur, (1) A MAJOR advancement regarding in-office tooth whitening, (2) an improvement in our website's usefulness to our patients (record access, etc.), and (3) a significant remodeling and expansion of our office.  We anticipate that these improvements will take place between June and October of 2001.  They will be posted here as soon as they occur!

Any digital picture we take of your teeth or other oral structures is now integrated into your electronic record.  Not only will this allow us to have your images available for immediate review, but it will also allow us to email them to you, or place them on a disk, at your request.

As our patients know, and as you realize as a website visitor, availability on a 24/7 basis to our patients is a cornerstone to our practice.  Dr. Hart has always been available through his voice-mail pager system to all our patients.  This number is always given to every patient who is treated by Dr. Hart.

We now offer transitional (temporary) implants for our patients to use IMMEDIATELY upon placement of their permanent implants.  One of the greatest challenges of providing implant care involves the provision of comfortable temporary restorations for you to use while your implants are bonding to your bone.  Thanks to a development by SteriOss and Nobel Biocare, we are now able to provide you with solid support for fixed temporary restorations while your real implants enjoy the freedom of no pressure to enhance their bonding to bone.

Formerly, 2 of our treatment rooms provided you with television by means of computer cards in the treatment room computers.  We were disappointed with the quality of the images using this protocol, so we have installed REAL TV's, with REAL REMOTES, in each room, for your enjoyment.

We have added a second, large-sized STATIM high-speed, high pressure cassette autoclave.  We now have 3 autoclaves; 2 Statims and one backup Pelton Crane, to assure you the absolute highest reliability in sterilization.  Of course, we continue to monitor the effectiveness of our sterilizers utilizing the Marquette University Sterilization Monitoring Service.

We now have acquired the capability to provide you with digital x-rays.  The advantages are:  

• 90 % less x-ray exposure to you.  Now a full set of x-rays exposes you less than just two film-type x-rays of the past
• 20% more resolution.
• Instant magnification.
• Immediate image (no waiting for developing)
• Environmentally friendly (no chemicals that go down the drain)
• You can have unlimited copies for your records, we can even email them to you!
• No additional cost.

In addition to our intraoral video capabilities (see below), we now have a 2.4 mega pixel digital SLR that we employ to establish baseline and before and after digital photos for your care.

MP3 music catalogs for our patients, based on standard or radio station formats.  If you would like, you can even create your own music catalog for visits.

All operative treatment rooms now have broadcast TV capabilities, either as an independent television, or as a television acquisition system on each treatment room computer.

Renewal of all instrument cassettes and bagging systems. 

To enhance our asepsis and sterilization, we have installed a state-of-the-art autoclave (steam sterilizers). The high speed, high pressure computerized autoclave is used to sterilize all of our handpieces ("drills"), inside and out, for every single use.

In order to help you visualize the status of your teeth, we have installed a miniature camera that you can use to take a visual "tour" of your mouth.

Can you say "cryptosporidium"? All municipalities are susceptible to contamination of their water supplies....it just so happens that Milwaukee actually had such a problem a few years back. In order to protect our patients in the event of another such incident, we installed a totally isolated water system for all of our treatment rooms. All of our sprays and hand piece coolants are sourced from this isolated system. If there is ever any problem with the municipal water system in Shorewood or Milwaukee, you can be assured that the water you are exposed to is from a safe, totally separate, and isolated source.

This device doesn't sound like much, but it's an extremely important aspect of comprehensive dental implant care.  It's actually an incredibly sophisticated and accurate computer controlled miniature screw driver that precisely delivers the maximum amount of tightening force needed to properly seat your implant restorations, without risking damage to the metallic or tissue components of your implant reconstruction. If you are considering implant care, be sure to ask your surgeon or restorative dentist if either of them use one of these. It's one of those "behind the scenes" technologies that not everybody utilizes, but is, never-the-less, extremely important to the successful outcome of your care.