Brian Harris grew up around dentistry.

“My dad would take my brothers and I to work with him during the summer,” Harris said. “We would get paid $2 per hour to unpack boxes, clean the lab, make stone models of teeth, etc. I realize now after having my own kids, he really did it so we wouldn’t drive my mom crazy at home fighting all summer.”

But just because he followed his father into dentistry, it doesn’t mean Harrison hasn’t paved an innovative path of his own.

“After returning from a dental mission trip in the Dominican Republic, I found myself sitting in an urgent care facility on a Saturday night with pneumonia,” Harris recalled. “Within 20 minutes, I had been seen by a great doctor and friendly staff and was back at home in my bed wondering why dentistry didn’t have anything this convenient.”

After he got home, Harris conducted a nationwide search and realized that not only did dental urgent care centers not exist, but patients with dental emergencies were actually filling emergency room waiting rooms and costing hospitals millions of dollars annually.

“I knew it was time to make access to dental care more available to the general public,” Harris said. “Two weeks, later OnCall Dental Urgent Care was born.

Harris said his goal for creating OnCall is to reduce the increasing number of dental emergencies seen in emergency rooms and traditional urgent care centers by giving patients a permanent fix for their dental issues.

“I think eventually this concept is going to change the way dentistry is practiced all over the globe,” Harris said. “I see the vision to truly effect the lives of people by keeping them healthy and out of pain and it has given me a new way to look at my profession. My goal is to continue to expand into other areas. I am determined to make good dentistry available to everyone whenever they want it.”

After opening the first OnCall Dental Urgent Care in Glendale in July, Harris has already added offices in Tempe and Mesa.