CE Zoom

Author: Sarah Thiel

  • How Two Women Built an International CE Platform from Nearly Nothing

    How Two Women Built an International CE Platform from Nearly Nothing

    Navigating the difficulties of establishing a women-owned and operated tech startup.

    Building CE Zoom from the ground up, co-founders Sarah Thiel & Katrinna Jackson, faced many mountains to establish themselves and find success.

    Lack of Funding and Investment

    Women-led tech startups are often overlooked for funding and investment opportunities, leading to difficulty in scaling their business.

    While venture capital funding overall has surged in recent years, the numbers haven’t leapt forward for female founders at the same pace. In 2022, companies founded solely by women garnered just 2% of the total capital invested in venture-backed startups in the U.S. 1

    Sarah pitched CE Zoom numerous times in the last 8 years. It takes an incredible amount of time and resources to prepare to meet with investors, only to have deals fall through.

    When you’re focused on finding investors, you’re not focused on the day-to-day of building your business, which could potentially set it back. With no funding and investment but sheer tenacity, CE Zoom was built on a shoestring budget to become an incredible platform.

    Balancing Work and Family Life

    Women in business often face the challenge of balancing their careers and personal lives, especially when they are also mothers. There are eight women who operate CE Zoom, five of whom are mothers. In describing this balancing act, Sarah says, “Having to be ‘on’ all the time, whether I’m in mom mode or CEO mode, is equally challenging and exhausting.”

    Building a strong team provides additional support when one aspect of life requires more attention. Honestly, there is no work/life balance. It’s all juggling.

    The CE Zoom team recognized the difficulty of juggling career and family responsibilities and have accounted for the needed flexibility and help each other keep all the balls in the air.

    Building a Support Network

    A support network can influence every aspect of a startup. Strong team members, people that can make introductions, cheerleaders, and sounding boards are all part of a support network.

    As a small-town girl living in a lonely world, Sarah had to go out and hustle. She went to every possible conference and endlessly networked. She talked to anyone that would listen. During this early phase, Sarah met her fan club – people who support her ideas, give critical feedback, and are loyal mentors.

    Often, Sarah struggled to be taken seriously. As she built her support network, she was able to utilize her connections to gain traction in an industry where she was unknown. Her support network has been pivotal in opening doors for CE Zoom. The hustle continued for years until one day, it seemed like the entire country knew what CE Zoom was.

    By persevering in the face of rejection, building a supportive team, and connecting with a respected support network, CE Zoom turned challenges into opportunities for growth and success. Finally reaching the peak and looking out to enjoy the beautiful view.

    Schedule a call if you’d like to see what we’ve built: [email protected].

    1 PitchBook. (2023. February 1). US VC Female Founders Dashboard. https://pitchbook.com/news/articles/the-vc-female-founders-dashboard

  • What Are CEUs?

    What Are CEUs?

    Some working professionals, such as healthcare technicians and IT specialists, have to complete competency assessments and ongoing training for their organization to maintain its accreditation and compliance. Continuing education units (CEUs), also called continuing education credits, represent the time spent in those continuing education programs. They help working professionals maintain the license their job requires.

    This article will cover everything you should know about CEUs if your employer requires you to keep current certifications.

    Why Is It Important To Earn CEUs?

    Continuing education is required in many fields, including education, healthcare, IT, interior design, architecture, insurance, and more. With continuing education, it will be easier for you to succeed in your current employment. These programs bring you up to date on the latest best practices and new technologies in your industry and equip you with the knowledge and skills you need moving forward. If you don’t earn the necessary continuing education credits for your job, you will likely lose your certificate and have to retake your certification exam. You may also lose your membership if you are part of a licensing body or association.

    What Are CE Credits? CECs vs. CEUs

    Continuing education credits (CECs) and continuing education units are both used to measure professional development in continuing education programs. A CEU equates to ten hours spent participating in a continuing education program, while a CEC is equivalent to one hour of educational experience.

    Why Should I Care About Earning CEUs?

    Healthcare professionals are required to recertify every three years to maintain their credentials. To do so, you either need CEUs, or you need to retake and pass the certification exam every three years. To go the CEU route, you have to earn thirty continuing education credits over the course of three years.

    To stand out in your field, it helps to stay current on your certifications and continuing education. It’s much easier to earn your CEUs rather than retake your certification exam every three years. Plus, earning CEUs helps you prove your competency to employers, improve the safety of your work environment, and stay on course with your career trajectory.

    How to Earn CEUs

    You can earn your required CEUs in several ways, many of which are free. You can:

    • Join an organization
    • Use an online learning module
    • Attend a conference or other event
    • Enroll in a college course
    • Participate in a technical committee
    • Use a competency-based training module
    • Deliver a presentation
    • Teach a course

    Once you reach the required number of credits, you’re finished!

    Join an Organization

    It can be a good idea to join your local healthcare professionals chapter. Being a part of this kind of organization will give you an excellent opportunity to access continuing education credits nearby or over webinars. It also allows you to connect with other professionals in your area.

    Online Learning Modules

    Online learning modules, such as CE Zoom, are an effective way to earn your required CE credits. With an online learning platform, you can find and attend courses that you wouldn’t usually be able to attend in person. CE Zoom even stores your certificates in one place, so you don’t misplace them, and keeps track of your state-specific requirements.

    Attend an Event

    If you can attend a conference or workshop, you can learn a lot from the experts who take the time to present at these events. There are many of these events every year that you can attend at the local, regional, state, or national level.

    Enroll in a College Course

    If you choose to enroll in a college or university course, it can count for up to 50% of your CEU requirements. Every semester you enroll in a minimum of three credit hours counts for five continuing education credits.

    Participate in a Technical Committee

    You can also get up to 50% of your CEU requirements by participating in an industry-specific technical committee. For each year you participate in a committee, you can get five continuing education credits.

    Competency-Based Training

    Properly documented competency-based training can also count for your continuing education credits. This training is often offered through your job and has to meet specific requirements to qualify. The instructor’s qualifications, the listed learning objectives, the application or hands-on component, and the length of time are all considered. The training has to last a minimum of 45 minutes per credit.

    Deliver a Presentation

    Instructing or facilitating an industry-specific course or presentation is another way to earn your credits. Delivering academic content is an excellent way to teach others and help them get credit while also furthering your own career and education. Each course or presentation of at least 45 minutes earns you two CEUs/CECs; for the dental profession, you receive one CE per hour.

    Who Can I Recertify With?

    Recertification is nearly always done through state boards. Recertification requirements and guidelines vary by profession and location, so check with the state in which you obtained your license(s) to find out where, when, and how often you must recertify.

    Recertification Requirements

    The recertification process is relatively simple. Before your current certification expires, you should complete the steps below:

    • Log in to the CE Zoom tracking system and enroll in the right program for you
    • Complete the program to earn your CEC
    • Receive credit for completed tasks by submitting them within 90 days in your CE portal
    • Use the CE system to track your progress
    • Obtain a transcript to submit to the state for recertification

    What Is the Cost to Earn CEUs?

    The cost depends on how you choose to earn your CEUs. Some CEUs don’t cost anything to earn, and some are offered through your employer. If you decide to travel or attend an event far away, it will cost you more, as will enrolling in a prestigious college course. On the other hand, you can also teach a course at no cost or take a webinar through your local organization and get a free CEU. It’s most important to focus on the quality of your CEUs, rather than the cost.

    Sign Up for CE Zoom

    If you need to earn CEUs and want a centralized location to find courses and track them against your state’s specific requirements, turn to CE Zoom. Our easy platform will inform you about all available continuing education opportunities in your area, help you find out what CEU is right for you, and make your recertification process as easy as possible. Sign up to get started.

  • How to Offer In-House CE

    How to Offer In-House CE

    Standardize your office processes and knowledge throughout all your practices.

    Educating your staff, especially within DSOs and large group practices, can be more effective than relying on outdated dental association meetings to provide the needed CE and training. Internal training allows you to offer your staff the required education and standardize your office processes and knowledge throughout all your practices.

    If you’ve started the process for offering CE, you probably realized quickly that it takes a lot of work to become an Approved Provider. The process may seem daunting and not worth the effort.

    Why do you pay thousands of dollars for your staff to attend an out-of-town conference? For one, they need the CE for their license renewal. Secondly, you do it because you hope they will return with knowledge and increase the net profit of your office – because we know that education sells.

    If you invest in your staff’s education, they can educate your patients on the correct care and services needed, which in turn increases your practice’s revenue. If your staff doesn’t understand why a service is needed, then they can’t effectively explain it to your patients. This flow of education increases the trust and the relationship between patients and your staff.

    By offering your CE in-house, you can bring speakers and trainers directly to your offices. If you are an expert in your field, you can provide the CE and train your own staff. We can help you become an Approved Provider so you can educate your own staff and offer the required CE your staff needs.

    CE Zoom makes offering CE simple by eliminating the time, effort, and paperwork required. CE Zoom has done the work to become a recognized CE Provider in accordance with AGD-PACE. By working with us as a Joint Program Provider, we walk you through the red tape and help simplify the process to offer your training. We make sure your education follows the AGD-PACE standards and guidelines.

    Additionally, with our state-of-the-art system, we manage the courses, registration, surveys, and other details all the way through the digital CE certificate distribution. With CE Zoom’s state-specific CE Tracker, we make sure the courses your staff is taking will count towards their license renewal. You can also view your staff’s training completion and what courses are still required.

    We take the misery out of the Approved Provider process and allow you to focus on providing courses and training that are aligned with your vision and make your practices more profitable. We do all the heavy lifting so that you don’t have to.

    Don’t worry about how to offer CE, instead let’s decide when. Schedule with CE Zoom to get started.

    For more information, contact [email protected].

  • What Is An RDH License?

    What Is An RDH License?

    An RDH license is your Registered Dental Hygiene license, and you need a valid one to maintain your career. Without your RDH license, taking patients and practicing dental hygiene is unlawful. You need to renew your RDH license regularly, and CE Zoom can help you do that.

    Renewing Dental Hygiene License

    Renewing your dental hygiene license is easier than ever these days. A dental hygiene licensee must renew their license every two years. At this point, you can renew most dental hygiene licenses online, and physical copies generally aren’t sent out unless you request them, and it can take weeks to get to you. Let’s look at some reasons why you may need to renew your RDH license.

    Expired/Canceled License

    If you wait longer than five years to renew your canceled license, it expires and can no longer be renewed or restored. When your license expires, you must reapply as a first-time applicant for your RDH license.

    Inactive License

    You can put your license on inactive status at nearly any time, and you can renew your inactive license indefinitely. To do so, you’ll have to complete an Active/Inactive form, attach copies of your continuing education taken within the last two years, return the original inactive license, and pay a fee. You’ll still have to pay the renewal fee, but you won’t have to complete the required continuing education courses.

    Disabled License

    You can certify that you’re eligible to waive the requirements for continuing education because of a disability. You’ll have to continue to pay the renewal fee, but for the duration of your disability, you won’t have to meet the continuing education requirements, and you can put a pause on your license. To waive these requirements, you will need to have a statement from your physician that includes the dates of your disability. You’ll also need to give your own statement that you didn’t practice as a licensed auxiliary throughout your disability.

    Duplicate/Replacement Licenses

    If you need a duplicate or replacement copy of your dental hygiene license, you’ll have to submit your request in writing with a form, pay a fee, and provide your pocket or wall license, as needed. If you’re replacing your license because of a name change, you’ll also need to send in documentation like your marriage license, divorce decree, or other court order that shows the name change.

    Your Dental Hygienist License Renewal Requirements

    Before you can renew your license, at minimum, you must pay the renewal fee, complete the required continuing education hours, hold a current basic life support CPR certification from the American Red Cross, and have taken and passed the appropriate Jurisprudence Assessment. In some cases, you must also be in good standing with the Attorney General’s Office for Child Support.

    Renewal Payment

    In most cases, you can renew your license online. This means that you can instantly renew your license, make your renewal payment by credit card, and see it go through quickly and go into effect immediately. Making your renewal payment quickly and easily makes it efficient to renew your license.

    Dental Hygiene CE Requirements

    If it’s your first time renewing your license after getting your RDH in the past two years, you don’t need to complete any CE credits. Otherwise, you have CE requirements to renew your license. Depending on the state you are licensed in, you will have mandatory continuing education courses you’ll need to complete to be able to renew your RDH license.

    Completion of CE Credits

    It can be challenging to keep track of your dental hygiene CE requirements and current CE credits and know what credits you still need to complete your license renewal. That’s where CE Zoom comes in handy. CE Zoom brings the courses to you by tracking your courses based on your state’s regulations. That way, you won’t have to scramble to figure out which courses you need to take to be able to renew your license. CE Zoom can tell you quickly and easily and help you find providers and courses to help you complete your needed CE credits.

    Completed Dental Healthcare Workforce Survey

    The Dental Board requires that dental healthcare professionals complete the Dental Healthcare Workforce Survey. In accordance with the Business and Professions Code, you must complete this survey before obtaining or renewing your RDH license.

    Fulfillment of Fingerprinting Requirements

    To fulfill the fingerprinting requirements needed to renew your RDH license, you must complete an application. Once your application has been approved, you should get information about how to submit your fingerprints for your background check.

    Benefits of Renewing Your RDH Today

    There are many benefits to renewing your dental hygiene license with CE Zoom, including maintaining legal compliance, easily tracking the CE credits you need, and completing the entire process online. So, get the ball rolling today and begin the renewal process. Sign up for CE Zoom and make sure you’re on track with your CE credit requirements, so you’re ready for your new license renewal.

    Renewing Online With CE Zoom

    CE Zoom can assist you in preparing for the next time you need to renew your RDH license, and we help manage and track all of your CE needs. With help from CE Zoom, you can know precisely what you’re missing for your next renewal, and you’ll be ready to renew online when the time comes.

  • What Industries Need CE Credits?

    What Industries Need CE Credits?

    Learning is a lifelong process, and many professions require you to continue learning after completing your formal education. That’s where continuing education comes into play. What are CEU credits good for in your professional life? Let’s dive in and explore why you might need continuing education credits.

    What Is Continuing Education?

    To have the most updated knowledge in their industries, professionals must pursue continuing education. Professionals in dynamic fields often need continuing education courses. Jobs that require a license, such as teaching, accounting, law, insurance, etc., will usually require continuing education as well.

    How To Choose a Continuing Education Course

    The type of continuing education course you take will depend on the needs of your profession. When choosing a type of continuing education course, you have to consider several factors. You’ll need to look at the course’s length and topic and your industry’s requirements.

    Length

    Consider how many hours of continuing education you need. Look into what your needs are, and choose accordingly. Shorter courses are suitable for filling in gaps, while longer courses are good for more new information.

    Topic

    Depending on your industry and the state you live in, the topic of the continuing education course is important to consider. There might be a particular focus you’re required to study. You should also consider how you want to expand your knowledge and your professional goals.

    Industry

    As mentioned above, you might be required to take a continuing education course in specific subjects, depending on your industry. Take that into consideration when choosing a course. Another consideration is any specialty you might have within your industry.

    Industries That Require CE Credits

    There is a wide variety of industries that require CE credits. Check out the list to see if your chosen profession is included.

    Teachers

    Not all schools require certified and licensed teachers to teach, but some consider it a point of pride only to hire authorized teachers. The US Department of Education encourages teachers to participate in continuing education courses to keep the necessary certification.

    Accountants

    Continuing education as an accountant gives the accounting profession a uniform approach. The CPA licensure exam is only the beginning of education for an accountant. Most states require accountants to participate in continuing education courses throughout their careers.

    Real Estate Agents

    Real estate agents work in a field that needs to be the same across the board. Agents need to keep up with their continuing education to keep their license when there are changes in their profession.

    Dental Professionals

    Health care is one of the biggest industries that need continuing education credits, and dental professionals are part of that. Dentists and dental hygienists are required to keep up with their continuing education courses and keep up to date with the industry.

    Insurance Agents

    Insurance is a dynamic industry that can change yearly. To keep up with the changes, insurance agents are often also required to participate in continuing education courses to renew their licenses.

    Lawyers

    The American Bar Association has a rule about continuing legal education. There are many accredited activities, such as teaching, online education, writing publications, and more. This continuing legal education is required if you want to keep your law license.

    Engineers

    Technology is constantly changing, and engineering has to change with it. Depending on state requirements and your specific branch of engineering, there’s a good chance that you’ll have to keep up with continuing education mandates to update and renew your license.

    Physicians

    The majority of physicians are required to keep up with continuing medical education. Doctors need to stay competitive in an ever-changing industry, and continuing education helps to do that.

    Nurses

    Along with physicians, nurses must constantly update their industry knowledge. Most states require continuing education every couple of years for nurses.

    Psychologists

    Psychology has been experiencing a demand increase in the past few years. Similar to other health professionals, psychologists should be continually learning. Continuing education is necessary for psychologists to be able to provide competent care.

    Architects

    Continuing education is required for architects to keep their licenses. If you practice in multiple states, that can open up more needs for continuing education.

    Benefits of Continuing Education

    You can easily spend your whole life learning, and there are plenty of reasons why you should take advantage of your continuing education opportunities. Even if you’re doing it for your job, you might learn something new that will benefit your everyday life. By taking advantage of continuing education opportunities, you can increase your chances of promotion, increase your income, propel career development, build confidence in your knowledge and skills, and open more professional opportunities.

    Increase Opportunity For Promotion

    The more you know, the more opportunities you have to grow. Continuing education can increase your chances of promotions in your job. When you stay on top of your continuing education needs, your supervisors see that you are motivated and driven to do what needs to be done. This could mean that they consider you for other opportunities and promotions.

    Helps Increase Your Income

    Along with possible promotions, your income can increase when you continue your education. Continuing education keeps you up to date with your certifications and licenses. Having current certifications can help you get a raise and increase your income.

    Propels Career Development

    With continuing education, you can also propel your career development forward. You’ll be up to date with the latest information and skills in your field. With this knowledge, you can go further in your career and achieve more. Knowing the latest trends and procedures can propel your career development regardless of your industry.

    Build Confidence In Skills and Knowledge

    When you are up to date on the latest skills and knowledge in your industry, you have more confidence in yourself and your abilities. You feel more able to tackle whatever challenges come your way in your job and better equipped to help others when needed. In many cases, with more confidence comes better working opportunities.

    Can Open More Job and Professional Opportunities

    All of the above can help open more job and professional opportunities. Keep up with your needed continuing education courses, and maybe even more than what’s required, and see what a difference it can make for you and your career. When people in a decision-making position see your enthusiasm and dedication, they can help you go places.

    How To Succeed in Continuing Education

    If you want to succeed in continuing education, we have a few tips for you. Success in continuing education looks similar to success in traditional education. Manage your time well, set aside distractions and give yourself time to study, use your resources and network to your advantage, and take notes. Once you have good study habits in place, there’s no limit to your success.

    Manage Your Time

    One of the best ways to manage your time wisely is to have a routine. Your routine should give you enough time to adequately commit to the course and study. The recommended time is to allow for two to three hours per credit hour of enrollment. With this standard, prepare to spend six to nine hours each week studying if you enroll in a three-credit course. Even if you’re taking the class from home, you’re responsible for completing the course and the required work.

    Set Aside Distractions For Studying

    It can be helpful to have a dedicated study space. This dedicated space should be free of distractions and excess noise. Libraries are usually good for this, especially if you can reserve a designated study room. If the library isn’t an option, set up a dedicated space at home. This can be a home office, a bedroom, or just a desk. Get into the mindset of preparing to study when you use this space.

    Use Your Resources and Network

    Most educational opportunities will have resources available to you. These resources are provided to help you, so don’t miss out! Your network can also be helpful when you need to pursue a continuing education course. See if anyone in your network has connections to a good program or can tutor you if needed.

    Take Notes

    One of the most crucial studying tips is to take notes. Chances are, you won’t remember everything you need to know. Even if you think you’ll remember everything, write it down anyway. Take notes in a way that will help you study, and take notes often. They will be invaluable when it comes time to study for an exam or test.

    Where To Start?

    So, what now? It’s time to find a continuing education course that works for you! An excellent place to start is with CE Zoom’s offered courses. We also have ways for you to track your progress and the continuing education credits that you still need. Check us out and see what we can do for you!
  • All Your CE in One Place

    All Your CE in One Place

    Running a successful dental practice is nearly impossible for one person to do alone. Hiring experts in specific areas and setting up processes and systems are crucial to productively run a practice. Once a process is established, opening another office becomes streamlined. Find key players, put systems in place, grow your business, repeat.

    An area often ignored is making sure your key players remain key players by keeping their licenses in good standing. Without a license, they can’t produce. Many companies and offices provide CE or a stipend for their staff to facilitate license compliance. With no system in place, state rules for each professional’s license type could be misunderstood, therefore causing a key player to fail an audit.

    Let’s use payroll as an example. As an employer, you have a responsibility to ensure your staff is paid for their work. You also have to ensure your employee payroll meets all the requirements for proper calculations including accurate deductions, appropriate payment for hours worked and other considerations such as voluntary deductions when applicable. That’s a lot of information to keep track of using a manual payroll process. I don’t know any employer who does this manually. Why waste valuable time when there are multiple systems that can do this for you? Just like the ease of a payroll system, CE Zoom manages CE and license compliance for your entire staff.

    We’ve surveyed thousands of dental professionals and the top 3 concerns we hear are:

    1. Difficulty understanding each state’s licensing requirements
    2. Finding necessary CE courses for license renewal
    3. High cost of CE

    CE Zoom solves all 3 of these concerns in one simple program.

    The CE requirements required for each profession and license vary significantly from state to state. For example, most professionals understand that AGD-PACE and ADA CERP are approved in all 50 states. However, a common misconception is if the CE Provider is approved then the course will count towards CE. This isn’t always the case. Some states don’t allow self-help or business courses or limit the hours that count toward CE. Several states require mandatory courses by state-approved presenters for license renewal. For example, New York requires a state-approved infection control course that can only be given by a state-approved presenter.

    CE Zoom provides all the required CE courses in one location. There is no need to scour websites or travel to conferences looking for the right CE. As for cost, a dental professional can get all CE through CE Zoom’s Your Total Package for a low annual fee.

    Navigating the required continuing education can be complex. CE Zoom is here to simplify it. We’ve done the research, we track licenses with precision, and we provide every course professionals need to renew. One place. One price. No joke.

    For more information, contact [email protected].

  • The CE Struggle is Real

    The CE Struggle is Real

    The ups and downs of starting a business and the rewards of creating a solution for efficiently auditing and tracking state specific continuing education credits in the dental industry.

    Sarah Thiel, RDH

     Had anyone told me three years ago I would be sitting right here writing an article for a dental hygiene newsletter, I would have looked him or her in the face and laughed hysterically. I didn’t seek this out. I didn’t grow up knowing this is what I wanted to do, it just happened. This is the story of CE Zoom. (1)

    CEZoom-black-red-300dpi-new

    About five years ago, I was going along with my life as a mother, wife, and dental hygienist. I had a beautiful daughter, a loving husband, and a great position working three days a week. At the time I was pregnant with our second daughter, when all of a sudden I realized I still needed to get most of my continuing education (CE) completed within the next eight months. Being a procrastinator I tend to put things off until the last minute. When we get caught up in our perfect lives, there are things we put on the back burner. This just happened to be something that wasn’t at the top of my priority list at that time. Naturally, I panicked, sat down at my computer and start searching for opportunities to obtain CE credits in my area.

     partner pic

    Sarah Thiel, RDH and Katrinna R. Jackson, RDH, BS, CE Zoom Founders

    First question, where can I find CE? I tried local searches, but there was nothing in my area. I live in a small town and there are few CE courses offered in my locale. After searching for hours with no results, I remembered that the American Dental Hygienists’ Association (ADHA) was going to be in Albuquerque that year! I realized I could obtain all the CE credits needed that had to be obtained by attending a “live” course. I attended the ADHA Center for Lifelong Learning (CLL), and for obvious reasons I really enjoyed it. With my arms full of all my handouts, exhibitor swag, and personal belongings, I had clenched in my hand that one little piece of paper I had traveled and spent much money to obtain. I walked out the door and my certificate got caught in a gust of wind. There. It. Went! Sailing in the wind. Instantly, I drop everything in my hands because that piece of paper was worth more than gold to me at that moment. I stomp on the paper with my high heels, pick it up, marched to my car and shoved it in the glove box! The whole way home I just couldn’t believe certificates were still on paper! Paper! Seriously, we are in the 21st century!

    Live Site

    Sarah and Kat seeing the “Register” button on the website for the first time!

    This is where it all began, and from there I just started thinking. Why isn’t there a centralized location for me to find courses and have them tracked against my states specific requirements? I did a lot of research to find digital trackers, but none of them were easy to use or really worked properly. One day my family and I were on vacation in Utah at my Brother Jed’s house and he mentioned that the company he worked for built web applications. Immediately my thoughts went to my recent experience. Now let me warn you, this appears like it would be easy, right? Just build an application that would store continuing education certificates and track CE credits. Wrong. The ideas I had were too grand for the first web development companies I approached. After working with them and exchanging emails they quoted me a fee I could not afford to pay. I asked them to partner with me, and they said they would!

    I got right to work on my research. After many unreturned emails they decided they couldn’t work with me after all. I stewed over it for about six months or so, when I finally convinced my former employer/friend Kat, who is also a dental hygienist, that she should embark on this project with me. She provided the funding and we got back to work. I called Jed’s company and told them we obtained the funds to begin the project! They started to build a website. We weren’t very far into development when we heard there was another company launching an application similar to ours. The company we were working with at the time told us there was no way we could compete and advised us to invest our passion and excitement into something else.

    At this point I had the opportunity to sit on the state dental board for my state. Being on the inside I could see the problems oral healthcare professionals were faced with when searching for courses, storing CE credits, tracking CE requirements and renewing their licenses. This insider perspective would allow me to apply this knowledge to CE Zoom thereby greatly benefiting the healthcare professionals using the CE Zoom application.

    After confiding in a friend, I was referred to our current web development company, Translucent Developments. (2) Their approach was much different than the previous web development company. Translucent Development specializes in large-scale web application development and offers a service they refer to as “Startup Development” which means they understand what it takes to launch and grow a successful web based company. After learning about their record of success with educational apps we started working together immediately. The first step was to ensure that they understood the problems that dental professionals face regarding continuing education and the relicensing process so together we could write a set of requirements which would serve as the blueprint for the CE Zoom application.

    We started the development process in December, 2014. Outside of the development process Kat and I were responsible for gathering each states specific requirements and supplying them to Translucent Developments in a usable format. Kat and I spent many nights reading through every state’s rules and regulations, deciphering them, carefully documenting them, and calling the states to make sure we read them all correctly. I had one state tell me that I needed my attorney to read through the rules and regulations because they were concerned I would misinterpret their words and they would be liable. I believe that if a state’s rules and regulations are so difficult to understand that one needs an attorney to be compliant with their dental hygiene license, something is seriously wrong with this picture.

    After months of preparation and development we were finally ready to attend our first conference as exhibitors. We attended the ADHA Annual Session in Nashville, TN. The point of attending this conference was to gain feedback and start getting dental hygienists excited about the CE Zoom application and it was a huge success! We came away with many new friends and contacts and some really excited dental hygienists.

    There is currently nothing like CE Zoom. There is no place an oral healthcare professional can go that will inform them of all the available continuing education opportunities. There is no website where a presenter can enter a course and have it go directly to the dental hygienist or dentist who needs those CE programs. There is no program of which I am aware that will literally track Continuing Education Credits against each individual’s state requirements in an audit-proof fashion. Why wouldn’t dental hygienists be excited?

    I write this because I had no clue about the difficulty of this journey. It has been hard work, but I know this hard work will one day be worth it. If you have an idea, go for it! Don’t just sit back and wonder what could have been. Yes it’s been difficult, but I have met so many amazing people from this venture and I have experienced things some people may never be able to experience. We are confident that CE Zoom will be a huge success but even if it’s not, at least we can say we tried and didn’t sit back and watch someone else do it. Visit the website and let us know what you think! (1)

    References

    1. CE Zoom – https://cezoom.avalaunch-preview.com/
    1. Translucent Developments – http://www.tdevelopments.com/

    Sarah Thiel is the co-founder of Ce Zoom. She has been a Registered Dental Hygienist for 8 years, working clinically and serving as Secretary on the New Mexico Dental Board and has been a clinical instructor at San Juan College.

  • CE Zoom Attends CareerFusion

    CE Zoom Attends CareerFusion

    On January 9th through the 13th CE Zoom attended Career Fusion, an annual retreat for Health Care Professionals. After making some excellent connections in the health care industry we learned about some exciting new dental products and even gave some input regarding how to improve those products. The response from presenters and dental professionals when talking about the CE Zoom application was overwhelmingly positive.