Setting up IT for a squat dental practice: a starter guide

Opening a squat practice is one of the few times you get to build your IT properly from scratch — no legacy hardware, no inherited mess. Get the foundation right and you will avoid years of workarounds.

Here is the order of work that keeps a new-build IT project on schedule.

Start with the cabling

Structured cabling is the one thing that is painful to change later, because it lives in the walls. Plan before the plasterers finish.

• Cat6 runs to every surgery, reception, and the server location
• Outlets at each chair for the workstation and any imaging hardware
• A tidy, ventilated comms cabinet for the switch, router, and server

Specify the right hardware

Dental software and imaging are more demanding than ordinary office apps. Size the kit for the job:

1. Business-grade surgery PCs that can drive your imaging software
2. A reliable server (or supported cloud equivalent) for your practice-management database
3. A business firewall and managed switch — not a consumer broadband router

Software and imaging

Your practice-management system — EXACT, R4, Dentally, or another — and your imaging software need installing, licensing, and testing on every workstation. This is also when integrations with X-ray sensors and OPG/CBCT units get configured.

Build compliance in from day one

A new practice has no excuse for retrofitting security later.

• Encrypted daily backups, tested before opening
• Individual user accounts and access controls
• Antivirus, firewall, and a written data-security policy ready for CQC

The best time to make your IT compliant and resilient is before a single patient record exists. The second-best time is now.

We handle complete squat-practice setups end to end — cabling to first patient. Book a call and we will scope your build.