Memphis Dental Practice: Two Computers per Workstation Became One

Organization: A Memphis-Area Dental Practice

This happened years before Joe Pennel founded Netcosa, “long before AI was around,” as he puts it. On his first visit to a dental practice in the Memphis area, Joe found two computers at every workstation. He calls it his “famous story,” and it shows what dental IT support in Memphis looks like when someone asks why a workaround exists instead of accepting it. Netcosa’s managed IT services for dental practices rest on the same habit: when a vendor is involved, Netcosa makes the call.

The practice ran two Carestream Dental systems, and each system lived on its own computer, so every workstation held two machines.

Challenge: Two Computers at Every Workstation

Joe asked the obvious question: why two computers? The practice’s answer was that it needed one computer for one system and another for the other, because the two systems did not work on the same computer.

Joe asked how the practice had found that out, and the split still made no sense to him. Both systems came from the same company, Carestream Dental. His understanding was that it came down to “something with a license key.”

The practice believed the split was unavoidable, and it was paying for it. By Joe’s account, the practice was “spending double on their costs.”

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Response: Keep Calling the Vendor Until Someone Knows

Joe did not stop at the practice’s answer. He started digging on his own into whether the two systems could share a computer. The order of operations:

1. Ask why. Joe asked why every workstation had two computers, and how the practice had learned the two systems could not share one.
2. Dig on his own. Joe researched whether the two Carestream Dental systems could run on one machine.
3. Call the vendor. Joe kept calling until he reached someone who knew the product, which he credits to luck: it happened on a call about a different problem.
4. Propose the change. Joe suggested changing the Windows registry (where Windows keeps its settings) and sharing the token.
5. Test on one workstation first. Joe asked the practice whether he could try the change on a single workstation.

The first few people Joe reached did not know. In his words:

“Ultimately, I got lucky because the first few folks I talked to didn’t know. I called somebody on a different problem.”

— Joe Pennel, President, Netcosa

That unrelated call is where the search turned. Joe brought the question to the person who knew the product. In Joe’s telling, that person said they had not done this before and did not really have people using both systems. Joe’s reply was that there had to be a way: he was pretty sure they could change the registry and share the token, and he could do some work on the back end.

When Joe brought the idea to the practice, the reaction was disbelief:

“I was like, you know, I’m pretty sure that we can make it just one computer. And they about hit the floor, like, it’s not possible.”

— Joe Pennel, President, Netcosa

The practice also said it had already asked. Joe’s next question was whether he could test the change on one workstation first.

Outcome: One Computer per Workstation

The test worked. From then on, each workstation at the practice needed one computer instead of two.

Joe’s retelling gives that result and stops there. It does not give a dollar figure, a workstation count, or a timeline, so this page does not either. What it does give is the before and after: two computers at every workstation, then one, with both Carestream Dental systems on the same computer.

Joe later founded Netcosa. The habit this story shows is the one he brought to Netcosa’s managed IT services for dental practices: when a vendor is involved, Netcosa makes the call, so the practice does not hear “call your vendor.”

Related: Managed IT Services