In-house Printed Models require high quality analogs
In-house milling of customized abutments saves time and produces abutments with demonstrated clinical and aesthetic benefits. It also gives those performing the milling complete control over the process. All while meeting regulatory requirements thanks to our open, validated, FD-compliant workflows.
Blanks in titanium grade 5, a stainless-steel holder, a blanks library in 3shape and exocad, compatibility with all major implant systems – the Elos Accurate® Pre-milled Blank Solution is a comprehensive, ready to use system.
Maximize your milling throughput
The Elos holder—mandatory for milling Elos Pre-Milled blanks—lets you mill up to six different blanks in a single operation. Made from durable, high-quality stainless-steel, the holder is compatible with imes icore (One+, 150i, 250i, 350i and 650i), Planmeca PlanMill® 60S and vhf (R5, S5, N4+, Z4) milling machines.
More implant systems will come in Q1 2024 including Neodent, Hoissen, Biomet 3i certain and Zimmer Screw-vent etc.
Regulations and risk mitigation
In the US, the FDA classifies customer-specific milling as manufacturing a Class II medical device. Labs milling custom implant abutments with CAD/CAM technology must either commission a validated milling center (VMS) with a listing of the facility and devices, and implement a Quality Management System or use products with a 510(k) pre-market clearance and registration with a validated digital workflow.
Solution
The FDA-cleared Elos-validated workflow is essential for dental labs and clinics to produce customized abutments locally. It ensures compliance with regulatory requirements, helps produce restorations that meet the highest standards of safety and effectiveness, and reduces the lab’s risk of liability issues.
Elos Digital SMART Flow paves the way!
Enter the workflow with the Elos Accurate IO Scan Body. All types of prosthetic choices are kept open:
✓ Customized bridges and bars in one piece ✓ Customized single abutments ✓ Elos Accurate Hybrid Base Engaging constructions ✓ Elos Accurate Hybrid Base Non-Engaging constructions
The Elos Accurate Analogs for Printed Models is the perfect fit for your digital workflow. And for your in-house model printing. It is specifically designed to allow for larger tolerances in the model. It features self-centering installation, with no risk of misplacement in the model.
Easy installation – analog is inserted by pulling it down from the underside of the model
It cuts itself into the model and stays in a fixed position – no matter the size of the hole (too small/too big)
It is locked – cannot be rotated
Special Features
These features ensure the physical model no longer risks deformation. The lab technicians no longer need to use full strength when inserting the analog in the model; they simply pull the analog in place.
In-house Printed Models require high quality analogs
Working with in-house printed models often involves significant issues with the small typography of the print socket where the analog is to be installed. The slightest inaccuracy will cause the analog to not fit in the socket, and the model must be redone. This is a challenge at every level: patience, cost, and time.
With this Elos Accurate printed model analog, we now have extensive and strong locking areas and a design that cuts through the model material for a safe press-fit installation. The key to this feature is installation from the bottom of the model. So, excessive pressure is no longer applied to the physical model.
Designed to benefit you
Elos Accurate® Analog for Printed Models – Educational video
Install with Elos Accurate Insertion Pin and Elos Accurate Analog Pliers. For optional extra safety, use Elos Accurate Insertion Screw. The pin, pliers and screw are compatible with all variants of analog platforms.
Enter the workflow with the Elos Accurate IO Scan Body. All types of prosthetic choices are kept open:
✓ Customized bridges and bars in one piece ✓ Customized single abutments ✓ Elos Accurate Hybrid Base Engaging constructions ✓ Elos Accurate Hybrid Base Non-Engaging constructions
It takes accuracy and precision to create customized dental implant prosthetic constructions. In the digital workflow, the scan body together with the dental library play the leading role in obtaining consistently high precision results.
To enter the digital workflow, a scan body is required. The Elos Accurate® IO Scan Body is intended to be placed in the patient’s mouth during intra oral scanning or on the plaster model at the dental laboratory. It doesn’t matter which scanner is used, as long as you can open the scan file in 3shape, exocad or Dental Wings.
Elos Accurate® IO Scan Body – Educational video
Choosing the right scan body is the entry key to an open digital workflow.
One screwdriver regardless of implant system
The Elos Accurate Scan Body empowers you to customize your prosthetic construction according to your preferences, offering flexibility without being bound to a specific system. When selecting a scan body, two key factors should be considered: accuracy and seamless integration into an open digital workflow.
Why Choose the Elos Accurate® Scan Body PEEK?
Works for both intra-oral and desktop scanning
High precision and quality
Multiple use
Guideline available for safe and effective cleaning, sterilization, and dry-time methods
PEEK for reliable scanning results without spray
Titanium screw, one screwdriver regardless of implant platform
Follows the implant diameter to ensure accurate installation
Color-coded titanium base according to implant manufacturer
Accurate connection for all major implant platforms
Free access to open libraries
Free product support
Elos Scan Bodies are available for major implants from Camlog, Dentsply Sirona, Hiossen, Neoss, Neodent, Nobel Biocare, Straumann and ZimVie.
Elos Digital SMART Flow paves the way!
Enter the workflow with the Elos Accurate IO Scan Body. All types of prosthetic choices are kept open:
✓ Customized bridges and bars in one piece ✓ Customized single abutments ✓ Elos Accurate Hybrid Base Engaging constructions ✓ Elos Accurate Hybrid Base Non-Engaging constructions
Seamless Digital Solutions for Dental Professionals
As a pioneer in digital workflow components, we develop and produce high-quality, innovative solutions for dental professionals. Our Elos Accurate® portfolio covers the essential dental components for the three key processes: SCAN, DESIGN, and MANUFACTURING.
All our products comply with FDA and MDR requirements for medical devices, providing our customers with a reliable and secure foundation to develop and grow their dental businesses. Our goal is to support dental laboratories and practices in achieving a high level of precision and reliability, enabling predictable and repeatable restorative results for their patients through a seamless Digital SMART workflow.
Digital SMART Flow – From first scan to final smile
We are a trusted partner for the world’s largest dental implant companies, with over 30 years of experience in the industry. In 2010, in partnership with 3Shape, we developed the original PEEK scan body with a titanium interface, which has become the industry standard.
Driven by a continual focus on improvement and innovation, we have developed solutions, such as the patented Elos Accurate® Analog for Printed models, which address challenges posed by the inaccuracies of 3D printing. Additionally, we have designed our Elos Accurate Hybrid Bases (Ti-bases) from scratch, taking human biology and material characteristics into account. Recently, we launched our Pre-Milled Blank Solutions in the U.S. market, allowing labs to mill titanium abutments in-house and giving them full control over the design and workflow.
More products have been added to the ELOS Accurate® product range to complement the below implant systems:
Dentsply Sirona – MultiBase EV
HIOSSEN – ET system
NEODENT – Grand Morse, Grand Morse Micro Abutment, and Grand Morse Mini Abutment
Strauman - BLX
ZimVie – Low Profile Abutment
We believe that expanding the product range will provide everyone with a greater selection to choose from.
The discerning reader or customer may observe that the product codes for the Nobel Biocare Multi-Unit Abutment NP/RP (MUA) remain consistent across the platforms mentioned above. This is due to its establishment as the gold standard among MUAs.
Over time, numerous other implant companies have adopted this same connection profile, enhancing the compatibility of the Nobel MUA with various systems. Through rigorous testing, we are pleased to confirm the compatibility with Elos Accurate products for Nobel MUA (our Analog for Printed Model products, hybrid bases, screws, and scan bodies), as well as with a range of other platforms.
How the new Elos Accurate® Pre-Milled Blank Solutions enable smoother workflows
Digital workflows have revolutionized restorative dentistry for the better in recent years. That much is beyond doubt. Another certainty is that digital workflows are still characterized by multiple, discrete steps: the clinician produces digital scans, the scan files are imported into a CAD application, they then go to the CAM software, then there is the abutment milling process… and on it goes.
Traditionally, clinics and labs have used separate solutions for these different steps. The outcome? Too much time and money spent trying to knit various products and systems into seamless workflows—and a loss of control over quality and timing (and of profit margins) every time key processes are entrusted to external parties.
The advent of validated in-house milling is however a major step towards realizing more streamlined, more profitable digital workflows. The new Elos Accurate® Pre-Milled Blank Solutions, for example, include blanks and a holder for in-house milling of custom abutments using imes icore, Planmeca and vhf milling machines. But as Ralph Erhard, Elos Medtech’s Senior Manager Technical Support and Sales puts it, the new solutions go far beyond being a “mere” product.
“The product is of course exceptional,” says Ralph, who has been deeply involved in the development of the new Pre-Milled Blank Solutions. “Just as important, thanks to our 510(k) clearance, the solutions offer labs a list of pre-approved and validated workflows between CAD, CAM and devices. This is so much more than regulatory compliance. It actually answers the big question posed by many labs: ‘How can I perform in-house milling in a way that protects profit margins, ensures quality, and provides validated workflows without incurring the costs of getting 510(k) clearance?”
Ralph is however keen to stress that the workflow benefits are not limited to US-based labs and clinics. “All the products in the Elos Accurate portfolio,” he says, “are approved by the relevant European bodies, and meet the provisions of the European Union’s Medical Device Regulation that are due to come into effect over the next few years. The bottom line is that labs in Europe and the US can benefit from the solutions, secure in the knowledge they are satisfying regulatory demands.”
Peace of mind to piece of time
In-house milling with validated workflows translates into significant financial benefits for labs. Removing an entire external step from the manufacturing phase means major time and cost savings. Instead of waiting days for products to return from milling centers, labs can mill customized abutments in under an hour. “Customization has obvious clinical and esthetic benefits,” says Ralph. “Then there’s the added patient satisfaction that comes from not having to wait for what essentially is a stock solution. Moreover, labs can boost their margins by offering specialized abutments—abutments they mill under their own control, without having to pay a premium to an external partner.”
But the benefits extend far beyond the commercial. “Truly customized abutments,” says Ralph, “deliver a level of functionality and stability that just isn’t possible with off-the-shelf abutments.” But achieving such high-performance abutments depends on several factors, one of which is the stability of the blank during the milling process. “That’s why,” adds Ralph, “we put such emphasis on developing a proprietary locking system for the new blanks.” Called GuideLock™, the system clamps the blank in a way that virtually eliminates vibration. But just as important is the accuracy of a blank’s position—something Ralph says has been optimized so that the blank’s position is aligned with that expected by the CAM. “After all,” he says, “Pre-Milled Blank Solutions are a part of the Elos Accurate family, so accuracy is of course paramount.”
For Ralph, it is the combination of innovative product features with validated and open workflows that makes the Elos Accurate Pre-Milled Blank Solutions so appealing to today’s labs and clinics. “On the one hand, there is the freedom of action that comes from being able to use different milling machines and produce customized abutments. On the other, there are the technical breakthroughs—the blank’s clamping stability and positional accuracy proceeded in a high-precision holder —that make the solutions so innovative.”
Elos Accurate® Libraries serve as the crucial link between your CAD software and specific implant components. They simplify your workflow by providing accurate representations of physical components, making your processes more efficient.
By making use of Elos Accurate Libraries, you can design and fabricate customized milled abutments, create one-piece bridges and bars with implant connection geometries, and achieve predictable results with engaging and non-engaging hybrid base restorations. Our libraries offer all the necessary tools at your disposal, empowering you to create outstanding dental restorations.
Let’s take a closer look at the 6 key advantages of Elos Accurate Libraries that you must know:
Comprehensive Digital Libraries: Elos Accurate Libraries are open digital resources that include all relevant components for major design software such as 3Shape, Exocad, and Dental Wings. They cover a wide range of implant solutions for various prosthetic indications.
Simplified Workflow: Seamlessly integrating into your digital workflow, Elos Accurate Libraries encompass all the necessary components for dental implant solutions. You can design solutions from start to finish in a digital environment, even when working with conventional impressions. This saves time and reduces the risk of errors. The libraries are compatible with popular platforms, eliminating the need to switch between implant-specific databases, scan bodies, or their settings, simplifying the workflow and reducing complexity.
Usability and Flexibility: Integrated seamlessly into major open CAD and CAM software applications, Elos Accurate Libraries allow dental professionals to work with their preferred tools and equipment.
Precision: Elos Accurate Libraries prioritize precision in dental implant procedures. They provide a comprehensive range of components and tools to ensure a precise model, enabling predictable results that enhance the success rate of dental restorations and improve patient satisfaction.
Continuous Updates and Support: The libraries receive regular updates to incorporate new products and software advancements. Elos Medtech collaborates closely with CAD/CAM software providers, implant companies, and dental clinics/labs to gather knowledge and ensure the libraries remain up-to-date and reliable.
Proven Track Record: Elos Accurate Libraries have gained trust and positive feedback from the dental industry. They have been downloaded tens of thousands of times by users worldwide and have a reputation for delivering reliable results. Elos Medtech’s focus on digital solutions since the birth of the dental digital era and its commitment to quality contribute to the library’s credibility.
In summary, Elos Accurate Libraries offer comprehensive, user-friendly, and precise digital resources that enhance the workflow of dental professionals. They support implant procedures and provide value to implant companies, dental labs, and clinics.
Why wait? Download Elos Accurate Libraries now and enjoy designing with accurate representations of physical components, which enable predictable results.
The past decade has seen a digital revolution in the dental implant field. Yet despite the transformations brought by digitalization, many clinics and labs remain locked into closed, proprietary workflows. Put simply, they must follow a workflow specified by an implant company.
The result is that once the designs are completed in the CAD / CAM software, labs and clinics have no freedom of choice when it comes to key components and devices. Indeed, under such proprietary arrangements, labs must rely on off-site, centralized manufacturing centers, even when they have their own in-house milling and printing capabilities.
At first glance, such locked-in workflows may seem advantageous. After all, every step is decided in advance; there is no need to spend time selecting different products and/or vendors. But locked-in workflows are also rigid and restrictive—hardly the best way of working when ideally labs should be using whatever validated, verified systems are best for an individual patient’s optimal outcome.
Moreover, the argument that locked-in workflows are essential for consistent results is hard to sustain in today’s digital landscape. For example, labs can now use pre-milled blanks and their own milling machines for fully controlled in-house milling of custom abutments. Labs can send digital files virtually anywhere in the world. And technology makes it easy to work with numerous trusted vendors and specialists around the globe.
Open and simplified
So what alternatives to locked-in workflows do labs and clinics have? One proven alternative is the Elos Accurate® Digital SMART Flow solution. A comprehensive and fully open workflow for all major implant platforms, Digital SMART Flow is suitable for all implant indications, and for in-house or outsourced production.
The acronym SMART of course suggests the solution is a generally more enlightened way of working than restrictive proprietary workflows. But SMART also stands for: Simplify the Manufacturing of Accurate Restorations with Technology—in other words, the solution offers everything needed for a smooth, reliable, validated workflow from initial scan to final outcome.
Simplifying the production of restorations is the bedrock of Digital SMART Flow. Labs and clinics are for example free to start with digital impressions from an intra-oral scanner or conventional impressions. They can then continue the workflow partly or entirely digitally—whatever best suits them and their patients. Further simplification comes from the fact that all components in the solution (scan bodies, hybrid bases, etc.) are compatible with all the major implant systems.
Workflow simplification is further enabled by the solution’s openness. End users simply upload the Elos Accurate Library to any of the major CAD suites. Once they have designed the restoration and received the STL file, they can open and convert it in any major open CAM software. There is no need for different components or equipment. End users can then choose to outsource milling and printing to a centralized milling center, or opt to perform these operations in-house.
The ’accurate restorations’ element of Digital SMART Flow refers to the solution’s focus on accuracy. This is demonstrated by the new single-body ScanBody22 in the Digital SMART Flow solution. Characterized by one highly respected lab owner as “an evolutionary advance in accuracy,” the ScanBody22 delivers exceptional scanning accuracy that helps “minimize the risk of adjustments further on in the workflow.”
Scan. Design. Manufacture
Digital SMART Flow is comprehensive, covering every phase in the journey from initial scanning to final printing and milling. For the scan phase, Digital SMART Flow offers the ScanBody22 titanium scan body, probably the most accurate scan body on the market.
For the design phase, the solution offers four open libraries, each containing all the relevant parts for 3Shape and exocad software. There is no need to worry about parameters for cement gaps, angulation, or height, since they are already tested and defined with extreme accuracy. The four open libraries are:
Elos Accurate® Custom Abutment Library, for milled customized abutments using Elos abutment blanks
Elos Accurate® Custom Bar Bridge Library, for creating one-piece bridges and bars, it includes implant connection geometries
Elos Accurate® Hybrid Base Engaging Library is for Elos Accurate hybrid bases (engaging) for screw-retained single or small cement-retained bridge restorations
Elos Accurate® Hybrid Base Non-Engaging Library is used for Elos Accurate hybrid bases (non-engaging) for screw-retained bridge restorations and bar restorations
Benefits for implant companies, too
But it is not just clinics and labs that stand to benefit from the open, validated workflow of Digital SMART Flow. As the market shifts away from locked-in proprietary systems, those implant manufacturers who can offer a solution that’s compatible with other products—whether it’s an implant, digital component, 3D printer or other product—are going to be preferred over those who only offer proprietary workflows.
Moreover, the Digital SMART Flow can help manufacturers quickly expand their product portfolios and get to market swiftly. That is because Elos Medtech is one of the very few companies in the FDA database with a 510(k) clearance for localized milling. Our workflow has been tested and is verified, ensuring regulatory compliance for adopters of our solutions in the US market. And of course, for labs and clinics in Europe, Digital SMART Flow is MDR compliant.
This post can of course only sketch several of the features and benefits of our Digital SMART Flow solution.
In the analog days of dental implant solutions, dentists and patients too often had to deal with delays and frustration arising from multiple visits and remakes.
Fast forward to today, and the spread of digital methods is helping to alleviate these issues, making life easier for labs, dentists and patients.
The benefits of localized milling are now widely recognized, and many labs already mill crowns and abutments in-house. With in-house milling, dental labs can boost their efficiency with a faster workflow, achieve higher profit margins and shorter turnaround times, and enjoy numerous other advantages.
But the process of making in-house milling a reality can be challenging. Most importantly for the US market, stringent FDA requirements must be met. Europeans, too, likely face a tougher regulatory environment.
With Elos Medtech, however, you don’t have to worry about satisfying regulatory requirements—we’ve already done that for you. The following paragraphs explain how our solution works, and how you and your practice or lab stand to benefit.
Pre-milled abutment blanks: offering benefits to patients and their providers
The precision, efficiency, and convenience with which labs can produce abutments with localized milling far exceed that of other solutions. Custom abutments result in a solution that perfectly follows the contour of the gum for a better fit and aesthetics much closer to that of natural teeth. Moreover, custom abutments are easier to clean, and result in better implant longevity.
Pre-milled abutment blanks enable dental technicians to produce custom abutments in their labs without compromising the quality and performance of the restorations. Key advantages include faster turnaround times and more control over design and production. And clinics can offer same-day chair-side restorations for less complicated restorations meaning less chair time for patients.
There is also less shipping of physical parts back and forth, reducing the likelihood of delays and shaving valuable time and cost off the process. Dental labs can mill a part in about half an hour to an hour instead of waiting a day or more.
The potential benefits to labs’ profit margins can be substantial:
Labs have more bandwidth to take on additional projects
Labs eliminate the time and expense of outsourcing custom abutments and other implant-related restorations
Switching to localized milling means labs can sell premium abutments with a greater profit margin since they’re no longer paying a premium for parts
Phil Brisebois, the founder of Gravidee Dental Studio, a 100% digital dental laboratory in West Hollywood, California, explains how the pre-milled blank has improved his workflow:
Localized milling: regulations and risk mitigation
Milling methods may be similar worldwide. But different regions and countries have different regulatory regimes that labs must follow.
In the US, the FDA classifies customer-specific milling as the manufacture of a Class II medical device. Therefore, labs milling custom implant abutments with CAD/CAM technology must either commission a validated milling center, or use products with a 510(k) pre-market clearance and registration.
The reality is that some labs that mill locally in the US do not adhere to these regulations and are thus breaking the law.
In Europe, there have been fewer rules to follow and little oversight. European labs’ ability to produce custom abutments in-house without validated workflows will likely change as global regulations continue to grow stricter with time.
Liability risks are great and can be costly in cases of non-compliance. At a minimum, labs risk idle production lines, capital costs burdens, and declining employee profitability. It is therefore essential that labs work with a trusted partner—one who already has a fully validated localized milling solution.
Safety and flexibility with a fully validated, open workflow
With Elos Medtech’s FDA-cleared list of pre-approved workflows between CAD, CAM, and devices, labs do not need to register as medical device manufacturers—Elos Medtech is the designated medical device manufacturer creating the components.
Using our pre-milled blanks, labs perform the end-stage patient adjustments themselves and enjoy the flexibility and freedom to choose in-lab milling that’s equivalent to using a validated milling center.
Furthermore, our 510(k) clearance applies to our entire Elos Accurate® product line, so working with Elos Medtech means enjoying the assurance of a fully compliant product line.
Brisebois relates his experience with Elos Medtech pre-milled blanks:
Flexible, open in-lab milling components
We use standardization in our medical devices for less downtime and more control. Our pre-milled holder is compatible with an array of brands, and the modular design means parts can be easily and inexpensively replaced on demand.
Our solution uses the same screw head support as the original implant manufacturer for fewer “extra” parts, and changing blanks requires only one tool. Our blanks are laser-marked for easier identification and traceability. We also have the most stable clamping geometry in the market, resulting in less deviation when processing, smoother surfaces, less manual rework, and less tool/spindle wear.
Phil Brisebois on his experience with Elos pre-milled blanks:
A trusted provider, Elos Medtech delivers the flexibility and control you demand—and the predictable outcomes your lab or clinic relies on.
To learn more about Accurate® Pre-Milled Blank Solutions and their benefits, click here.
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