Process & verification
A medical-records migration, engineered like one
Six phases, each gated by verification. Nothing irreversible happens until everything reversible has been proven. And your Dexis 11 system is read-only throughout — it remains your guaranteed way back.
Assessment
A short call and checklist: your Dexis 11 version, Dentrix version, Dexis 10 licensing status, database and image-store size, sensor models, and workstation count. You get a clear yes/no on fit, a fixed quote, and a proposed cutover window. No patient data is involved at any point in this phase.
Discovery & staging
We work from a snapshot of your Dexis 11 database — the same nightly backup mechanism Dexis already creates — restored into an isolated staging environment on your network. Image files are only ever opened read-only. Your production Dexis 11 keeps running untouched.
Full dry run
Before any real conversion, the entire job runs in dry-run mode: every patient enumerated, every image file located and validated, every record mapped — with zero writes. Missing files, odd data, or version surprises surface here, on a normal business day, not at 2 a.m. on cutover night.
Conversion night
The practice closes as usual. After the last X-ray of the day, the conversion runs against that evening’s snapshot. Each patient is converted in a single all-or-nothing transaction; any failure rolls that patient back completely and is retried automatically. The run is resumable at any point — even a power cut just means picking up where it stopped.
- X-rays are converted losslessly; color photos stay true color — detected from the actual image content, not just labels.
- Rotation and mirroring are carried over exactly as your clinicians left them.
- Every image is written in Dexis 10’s native format, including the internal integrity hash Dexis 10 itself maintains.
Verification
An independent reconciliation — separate from the converter’s own bookkeeping — must agree three ways: source database == new database == files on disk, patient-for-patient and image-for-image. Then human checks: known charts opened in the Dexis 10 viewer, and Dentrix Smart Image pulling the right patient from a converted workstation. Anything less than exact is a no-go, and no-go costs you nothing but the night.
Workstation & sensor cutover
Each workstation gets the Dexis 10 client pointed at the new server, and each operatory performs a live sensor acquisition test before the first patient arrives. Your sensors that worked on Dexis 10 before 11 work on it again — that compatibility is part of the assessment.
Rollback window
Your Dexis 11 server is left powered, intact, and untouched for an agreed archive period after go-live. Because it was never written to, “rollback” is not a restore project — it’s just pointing workstations back at the original system.
Fidelity
What survives the conversion: everything that matters
The conversion was built by reverse-engineering both database schemas and both image formats — then proving every mapping against real production data before it ever touched a paying client.
Clinical record
- Tooth numbers on every image
- Capture dates and times (not import dates)
- Image categories — intraoral / extraoral, X-ray / photo
- Acquisition device metadata
Image quality
- X-rays converted losslessly from source
- Color photos preserved in true color
- Panoramics at full resolution
- Rotation & mirror orientation exactly as displayed in Dexis 11
Practice linkage
- Patient demographics: name, DOB, sex, chart number
- Chart-number linkage Dentrix Smart Image uses to match patients
- Study & series structure preserved from Dexis 11
- Graphical annotations migrated in a scheduled follow-up pass — without ever touching the images
Hard rules
Three things we never do
Rule 01
Never write to your Dexis 11
Not one row, not one file. The source system is the rollback path, and a rollback path you’ve modified isn’t one.
Rule 02
Never move patient data off-site
The entire conversion runs on your server, inside your network. In the assisted and licensed models, our staff never touch PHI at all; in the done-for-you model, work is done under a BAA on your premises or your remote session — your data stays in your environment either way.
Rule 03
Never skip a verification gate
Dry run before conversion. Exact reconciliation before validation. Viewer and Dentrix checks before workstation cutover. Sensor test before the first patient. The gates exist so that “done” means proven, not probably fine.
Requirements
What your practice needs to qualify
Checklist
- Dexis 11 as your current imaging system
- Valid Dexis 10.x licensing — most practices that upgraded from 10 still hold theirs
- Dentrix G7.0 or newer for Smart Image (if Dentrix integration is your goal)
- Sensors supported by Dexis 10 (e.g., Dexis Platinum — confirmed in assessment)
- A Windows server (or VM) to host Dexis 10, with disk space for the converted image store
Not sure about any of these? That’s exactly what the free assessment answers.
Honest exclusions
We’ll tell you in the assessment if the rollback is wrong for you. Common reasons:
- Sensors or devices that Dexis 10 never supported
- No path to valid Dexis 10 licensing
- Workflows that depend on Dexis 11–only features your team actively uses
In those cases the vendor’s forward path may genuinely be the better fit — and we’ll say so.