hello i'm jim glidewell 2021 was filled with uncertainty emerging from a pandemic has proved
to be a difficult journey filled with twists and turns unexpected disruptions and ever-changing
regulations but we remain steadfast in our commitment to serve the needs of the
dental community and wish to thank dentists everywhere for your continued faith and trust
on behalf of the gladwell family we're honored to work alongside you and inspired by your
perseverance in preserving and restoring your patients smiles while the world grapples with
supply chain concerns rising prices and other unpredictable challenges our business development
r d engineering manufacturing and various support departments continue to pursue meaningful product
enhancements designed to benefit your practice as we look forward to a brightening future
i thought i'd take a moment to reflect on some of these innovations from the past year
in 2021 our clinical education division continued to provide digital and in-person
content to eager participants dentists earn more than 100 000 hours of continuing education units
through the weekly glidewell online study club and they earned 24 000 hours of continued education
through our online training videos and chairside magazine after a quiet pandemic year in 2020 we're
thrilled in 2021 to welcome over 500 dentists to the glidewell campus to attend a wide selection
of live courses from the placement of implants to polishing and cementing zirconia crowns and more
the glidewell.io in office solution continues to see widespread adoption embraced by an ever
increasing number of dental practices it's an important advancement in single visit dentistry
and is definitely paying dividends for patients and dental practices in 2021 we launched the
fully redesigned vast fastdesign.io software powered by margin ai and crown ai to deliver an
intuitive and streamlined workflow that as one of our doctors says eliminates the learning curve
the dot io team also introduced new material options in the form of brookshire aesthetic now
the bio temps now bridge block and the brux are now bridge block praised by dr
gordon j christensen as the most successful tooth colored restoration in the history of dentistry
our industry-leading brochure zirconia continues to bring lasting results to your restorative
patients clinical response has been so successful in fact that we've expanded our original seven
year no-fault warranty on brookstruff restorations to cover the patient's lifetime should your crown
or bridge fracture at any time we'll replace it for free not only that but we're also offering a
lifetime zirconia replacement policy on any other lab's non-bructured zirconia
restorations by replacing them with bruce or zirconia how's that for peace of mind
we also launched the bruxer shade guide designed to aid clinicians in faster
easier more accurate shade taking for bructure restorations it's the first shade guide created
from authentic bruxure zirconia with translucency equivalent to the bruckster aesthetics formulation
seven shades equivalent to the most popular beta shades and an additional glidewell beach shade
are included the glazed surface of a shade tab is used to determine the shade of a restoration
while the unglazed surface of a shade tab is used to determine the shade of a stump
independent data suggests that the prevalence of bruxism has led to a significant increase
in the prescription of night guards and other preventative care appliances
we certainly saw that at glidewell with demand climbing more than 53
many of these prescriptions were for our first 3d printed occlusal split the comfort 3d digitally
designed and 3d printed for a more precise fit and better retention the comfort 3d bite splint also
features more tongue space for patient comfort and is stain resistant and easy to clean alongside
the new bruxier lifetime warranty for implant crowns bridges and even full arch restorations
we now offer lifetime warranty programs for custom abutments and hand tapered implants providing a
lifetime guarantee from fixture to crown we also launched new titanium scan bodies to improve the
accuracy of intraoral scans and are working on many more developments for this essential
field of dentistry for dental sleep medicine we introduced the first nti tss plus and nti omni
splint for the treatment of chronic headache pain due to clenching and grinding we're also very near
to launching a silent night with herb style hinge attachments to address snoring and sleep apnea
for the 100 million americans on medicaid and medicare some of you may have heard that effective
january 1st i've appointed stephanie goddard to serve as our new chief executive officer
this is not a matter of me stepping down but with all that we are doing in an effort to improve the
lives of dentists and their patients i could use another hand at the helm after 15 years working
alongside her i know no one better suited to serve the needs of our customers and our industry
i hope you'll join me in wishing her well i've never been prouder to be a part of the dental
community than i am right now as we close out 2021 and embrace the promise of a new year i'm excited
for all that we'll achieve together in 2022 we're committed to the success of your practice
and look forward to serving you thank you for trusting and supporting the glidewell family
together we're bringing more smiles to the world and for that the future is looking very bright
you