Smile24h: Patient Education Portal by ZAGA Centers
- Katarina
Smile24h is the patient side of ZAGA Centers. We built it because the question patients with severe bone loss ask most, “is there anything that can be done for me?”, was being answered on forums and by advertising rather than by the surgeons who treat them. The site explains the treatment options in plain language, with the clinicians of the network behind every page.
It follows the same principle as the ZAGA philosophy in surgery: the patient’s situation comes first, then the plan. A patient who understands the difference between a graft, a zygomatic implant and a removable denture arrives at the consultation able to take part in the decision about their oral health.
What is on the site
The content is written and reviewed by surgeons from the network’s 70-plus clinics, and it is organized around three things:
- Quality of Life Study
Patients treated with zygomatic implants and full-mouth reconstruction are followed from before surgery to three years after. The aim is to report, transparently, what changes for the patient over those three years, and to add that evidence to what we already know about implant survival. Patients can read the study; clinicians in the network can enrol their own patients. - Patient community
A Facebook group where patients talk to each other and to ZAGA-certified doctors. Every medical question gets an answer from a doctor, not from another patient guessing. - Online guidance
The FAQ section is written by the ZAGA doctors of the network and answers the questions they hear in consultation. The success stories show real patients, before and after, in their own words.
For ZAGA doctors: how to contribute
Every ZAGA Center feeds the site: cases, answers to patient questions, and patients enrolled in the study. If you are a clinician in the network and not yet contributing, the Quality of Life Study is the easiest place to start. If you are not in the network and this is the kind of patient education you want behind your practice, that is one more reason to talk to us about becoming a ZAGA Center.
The site is at smile24h.com.
