The pandemic accelerated the digitalisation of UK dentistry – Densura’s Julian Perry asks how the digital revolution will continue.
The world stopped in 2020 when the global pandemic hit. Off the back of the pandemic, our society changed, and the dental profession has changed along with it.
One significant change has been the rapid acceleration in the adoption of digital consultation. This was born out of the fact that we couldn’t see patients face to face.
Clinicians under 40 now have a preference to work a three-day week. This could be facilitated by the time saved through the digitalisation of dental practice.
Digital consultation may have taken a leap forward, but despite recent growth in this area, our profession remains slow to adopt a fully digitalised path. European practices I work closely with have accelerated their adoption far faster, reaping the obvious benefits.
Why go digital?
- Evidence – digital processes support medicolegal arguments far more effectively than non-digital
- Communication – digital communication in the form of radiographs and intraoral scanners is much clearer than verbal description
- Consent – it’s easier to come to co-agreement through digital channels, making it simpler to achieve the all-important valid consent
- Selling – the presentation of aligner simulations, digital wax-ups for crowns and bridges, and implant planning all speak for themselves, raising treatment acceptance levels among patients
- Workflow – digital workflows are more profitable, efficient, accurate and professional.
The future
A few months ago, the team at Densura touched on what it thinks the future of dentistry will look like. Future practices are already being adopted outside of the UK and will come here next.
Here’s a reminder of what the team thinks the future has in store for UK dentistry.
A patient will visit their dentist and receive full mouth radiographs, an intraoral scan and full mouth photography. This will form the base data, along with very detailed social, dental (including past history, diet and oral hygiene practices) and associated baseline medical data.
The dentist will then carry out the treatment required and the patient will leave the clinic. But this is where the process changes! Upon their departure, they are issued with a box containing details of how to access a digital app and cheek retractors that attach to their smartphone.
Six months later, the patient gets an automated text message asking them to download the app, put the phone in the retractors and wiggle the phone until it makes a continuous tone.
Once completed, the data is sent to the server, overlaid onto the base data and the computer drafts the treatment plan, noting all variations to the baseline data.
The computer report is sent to the dentist for authorisation and is then automatically sent to the patient.
The software is presently being edited to allow the sale of additional services by recognising changes (tooth whitening, treatment for missing teeth or aligners, for example).
This new wave of digital dentistry is coming. The only question you must ask yourself is when you will adopt – as opposed to: ‘Will I need to adopt?’
It’s all clever stuff – if your idea of digital is an apex locator, perhaps it’s time to have a rethink!
For more information about Densura, visit www.densura.com.
