What’s driving the growth in digital dentistry?

What's behind the growth in digital dentistry?Colin Cornish, dentistry expert at Braemar Finance, explains what’s behind the growing trend in digital dentistry.

According to a recent report, the digital dentistry market will be experiencing stellar growth over the coming decade.

But going digital isn’t as new as you might think.

It has been evolving over decades, starting in the 1960s with the development of tomography.

A thesis on scanning in the 1970s followed this, with the first digital restoration taking place in the 1980s.

The 90s saw the introduction of interactive software (although its expense caused delays).

Looking at today’s landscape, there is a concerted trend towards a more digital workplace; no dentist can avoid it and dentists should embrace the opportunities it presents.

Growing digital dentistry

Labs are increasingly digitising, with the rise in implants being an example.

The use of digital imaging and data transfer improves accuracy and removes the need for re-work.

This reduces costs and speeds up the treatment process.

Also, the ability to create digital moulds without taking impressions provides the ability to show patients what their treatment will look like, thereby enhancing the patient experience.

This all benefits the patient.

Traditional methods of getting impressions just aren’t good enough anymore because there’s more scope for error.

Then, of course, there’s the rise of 3D printing with some of the larger practices investing in these devices.

This is a very real trend, particularly among technology-savvy younger dentists.

Smaller practices

Finance is available for practices of all sizes to benefit from the digital revolution, assuming the labs they use have also digitised.

Innovations

Something that’s still very much in its infancy is the use of an app for clients to take pictures of their teeth and send it to their dentist, who can assess if they need, for example, to have their aligners changed.

Funding

Today, scanning, planning, designing, milling, and 3D printing are realities within reach of every contemporary dental practitioner and requires only an investment in resources and education.

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