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"We continue to sustainably support the expansion of our clinics"
Eight years after the inauguration of its first unit, OralMED Laboratories has grown again with the opening of its fourth laboratory. This unit has reinforced the laboratory production capacity for the already 60 clinics owned by the OralMED Health Group. It has also ensured quality control and accelerated response times for prosthetic work delivered daily to hundreds of patients.
We spoke with Raúl Fernandes, Director of OralMED Laboratories, to learn more about this new laboratory, located in Alfena.
Why open a new laboratory unit?
- This laboratory opened as a continuation of the project we had already started in the South. Initially, OralMED Laboratories began with two laboratory units: OralMED Corroios Laboratory and OralMED Canelas Laboratory. With the expansion of the OralMED Health Group, and the geographical dispersion of clinical units, it was also necessary to consider the growth of our integrated laboratories. We thus opened the OralMED Moscavide Laboratory to increase our laboratory production capacity and ensure quality control of the work delivered daily to our clinics. As the group will soon exceed 60 owned clinics, we already anticipated that we would also need to grow in the North. We started hiring prosthetic technicians and ended up being limited in terms of space in our Canelas laboratory. In 2020, we were already prepared to open this new unit in Alfena, but the constraints brought by the COVID-19 pandemic ended up delaying this opening. But as soon as we gathered all the necessary conditions, we moved forward with this project to continue to sustainably support the expansion of our clinics.
How many employees do you currently have at the Alfena laboratory?
- At the moment, we have 12 technicians working in this laboratory. But the team is not yet complete. We opened recently, so we are still assessing our needs and stabilizing procedures. This team includes some technicians who transitioned from the OralMED Canelas Laboratory, but also several new members who are still going through an integration process. Currently, we know that the team will still need to grow to continue meeting the needs of our clinics, but we want it to be well-sustained growth.
Raúl Fernandes, Director of OralMED Laboratories
Are there differences between the Alfena laboratory and the other laboratories of the OralMED Health Group in terms of technology and equipment available?
- No. All our laboratories have advanced equipment and CAD-CAM technology at their disposal. But our goal is to continue evolving technologically. We aim to have increasingly digital laboratories and clinics, with increasingly rigorous procedures in terms of the quality of the work we deliver and increasingly agile. And these paths are already being thought about and evaluated. I hope that, in the future, we will have news in this regard.
What assessment do you make of these first weeks of activity at the OralMED Alfena Laboratory?
- We started recently, but I must say that my assessment is positive. As I said, we have people who transitioned from another OralMED laboratory unit and who are already adapted to our procedures. And we also have new elements that are integrating very well, but are still in the integration phase. Despite being in this adaptation phase, we already feel the benefits of this opening and I can say that everything has been going well. We can control the work much better now that we have two of our own laboratory units ensuring the prosthetic needs of our clinics in the Northern region. And this significantly facilitates our internal organization of laboratory production. Although we are not yet at 100% in terms of our workforce, the truth is that the benefits of this expansion are already being felt. This leaves us very satisfied and with very positive prospects for the future.
About the OralMED Health Group
Remember that the OralMED Health Group is the first Portuguese group specialized in Dental Medicine. With over 10 years of experience in the sector, it already has more than 60 owned clinical units, four dedicated laboratories, and a contact center, the first specialized in the Health area in Portugal.
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