Six dentists and industry leaders connected with Becker's on how dental practices and DSOs can best incorporate artificial intelligence.
Note: Responses were lightly edited for length and clarity.
Question: In what ways can private practices and/or DSOs effectively implement artificial intelligence to improve the dental industry?
Martin Dymek. CEO of Navigate Surgical Technologies (Vancouver, British Columbia): Artificial intelligence, coupled with dynamic surgical navigation, has the potential to offer real-time assisted implant treatment planning for both DSOs and private practice clinicians. This will create a pure digital workflow for the efficient and predictable delivery of dental implant treatment. Current implant treatment planning software, although highly effective, can be difficult to master and use consistently. Surgical guides require time to design and fabricate with inconsistent results. The clinician sends the CBCT file to an AI-supported remote/centralized treatment planning service which, in near real time, sends the proposed treatment plan back, where it is downloaded directly into the dynamic surgical navigation system. The clinician then surgically places the implants. Both patient and clinician benefit from the enhanced precision and predictability of dynamic surgical navigation and the expertise and efficiency of AI-supported treatment planning.
Heather Foster. CEO of Heritage Dental Group (Dallas): Private practices and DSOs can harness the power of artificial intelligence to transform the dental industry. AI can automate administrative tasks, enhance patient care and improve treatment outcomes. AI can significantly reduce the burden of administrative tasks in dental practices through automation, which frees up staff members' time, allowing them to focus on more critical tasks. Additionally, AI can automate billing and insurance claim processes, minimizing errors and improving efficiency. AI can also improve patient care by providing personalized treatment plans and recommendations by analyzing patient data. AI algorithms can also analyze dental images, such as X-rays or scans, to identify abnormalities or potential issues that may be missed by human eyes. This can help dentists make more accurate diagnoses and develop effective treatment plans. By implementing AI technologies, dental professionals can optimize their practices, increase efficiency and provide better services to their patients.
Brian Hamilton. Chief Development Officer of Allied OMS (Southlake, Texas): There continues to be exciting advances in the use of AI tools and robotic-assisted dental surgery. Firstly, many practices are adopting AI tools that collect, analyze and report on data, resulting in improved patient experience, outcomes and practice management. Secondly, robotic-assisted dental surgery provides better patient outcomes, less invasive procedures, faster recovery and fewer corrective procedures, all of which is also more cost effective. AI is quickly becoming ubiquitous in our surgical dental practice settings.
Richard Huot, DDS. CEO of Beachside Dental Consultants (Vero Beach, Fla.): Artificial Intelligence is probably one of the most exciting developments in the dental field in recent years, both from the potential of what it can accomplish and the improvement of quality care as we continually improve the diagnosis process.
AI will never replace the learned expertise of a clinician, but it can act as a "second pair of eyes" for the doctor and verify what the clinician is seeing on the digital images by the report generated. It can also be very helpful in a group practice to bring some consistency to the diagnosis/treatment plan process, since by tradition you can have significant variation among a group of dentists when it comes to treatment.
In the very near future, 3D imaging will also be developed for clinicians to use, and that will enable any dentist in any size office to be more confident about soft and hard tissue images in the head and neck area, and using that info to either treat patients or refer them to medical or dental specialists.
Michael Perpich, DDS. Dentist at Northland Smiles (Deerwood, Minn.): I feel that when dentists are able to integrate AI into their offices it will help them diagnose and do more dentistry for their patients. This is especially true for new dentists, as they will be more confident in their diagnosis and get their patients' mouths healthy, which will lead to healthier patients.
Karen Weber. Office Manager at Charles Weber DMD (West Chester, Pa.): Just as we send a standard ADA insurance form to all insurance companies, their explanation of benefits forms should be standard. It would make it much easier for training staff to understand a standard EOB. Information regarding the patient should be the same for all forms. Computers and AI can make that task easier for us at the front desk.