It’s clear that artificial intelligence (AI) is playing an increasingly transformative role in patient care. From analyzing patient images and tests to predicting patient outcomes to automating clinical workflows, AI technology offers a wide range of potential applications for dental healthcare providers.
In the world of dentistry, AI is being embraced as a collaborative tool that empowers dentists and their staff in diagnosis and treatment planning with efficiency, productivity, and confidence. While AI cannot replace the expertise and clinical assessment of human practitioners, it can be a highly effective tool in helping dentists diagnose with precision, develop personalized treatment plans, and improve patient acceptance and confidence.
AI-enabled tools can be particularly useful when it comes to diagnosis. Employing algorithms to analyze images including radiographs and intraoral scans, AI tools can help dentists find, identify, and diagnose difficult-to-detect issues with powerful accuracy and efficiency. This offers a significant advantage in early detection and intervention that can lead to improved patient outcomes.
Similarly, AI-enabled tools can also drive efficiencies when it comes to treatment planning. These tools are “trained” to analyze vast amounts of patient data, case histories, and treatment outcomes to provide valuable insight doctors can use to make informed decisions about patient care.
Patients are also coming to understand and embrace the advantages of AI when it comes to patient care and outcomes. A recent survey indicates that 64% of patients would trust a diagnosis made by AI, and 60% said they’d be comfortable using AI to analyze medical images. Those percentages increase significantly among younger patients, as well. What’s more, a report published in the Journal of Clinical Medicine indicates that patients largely agree that AI is useful in dentistry.
Applying AI to 2D Images
AI may be cutting-edge, but it doesn’t necessarily require practices to make a significant investment in new technology. For example, AI-enabled tools can be used to analyze 2D X-rays to help detect hard-to-find issues, such as carries and bone loss and support confidence in diagnostic decision-making.
While increasing diagnostic confidence, AI-enabled tools can also help patients have confidence in their dentists’ diagnoses and recommended treatment plans. While 2D X-rays can be difficult for patients to decipher, AI tools can help dentists present the findings in easy-to-understand, user-friendly visualizations that clearly show the clinical treatment areas of concern. The previously referenced Journal of Clinical Medicine report supports this benefit, finding that patients were better able to recognize caries lesions in X-ray images with the aid of AI than in images without.
With increased visibility of the issue and a clearly mapped-out treatment plan developed with the assistance of AI, patients can feel involved and empowered in their own patient care, which can lead to a better patient experience. Patient confidence may also encourage acceptance and compliance with dentists’ recommendations, which can support patient outcomes.
What to Look for in AI-Enabled Tools
Given the advantages in diagnosis, treatment planning, patient experience, and practice productivity, incorporating AI-enabled technology into your practice makes sense. But you’ll also want to make sure you’re investing in the right AI tools for your practice, goals, and budget. To help in deciding which AI technology is a good fit for you, here are a few key qualities to look for.
Analysis Capabilities
Look for AI-enabled tools that offer extensive capabilities when it comes to analyzing images, including 2D X-rays. Tools that uncover, detect, and identify the widest range of conditions — from caries to periapical radiolucency to root canal deficiencies to calculus just to name a few — will deliver value when it comes to diagnosis and treatment planning.
Seamless Integration
AI should make your life and your practice easier, not more complex. To that end, look for AI tools that integrate with your existing imaging software, to save yourself and your staff the time, hassle, and headache of having to install and learn a new system.
Patient Friendly
Your AI investment should enhance your patient experience as well as support your practice efficiencies and diagnostic confidence. Make sure the AI technology you invest in makes 2D X-ray findings easy for your patients to understand and accept.
Affordable Pricing
AI pricing is a key factor in your decision as well. Look for AI tools that fall within your budget parameters, but that are also from a reputable brand with a proven track record. Ask if the company offers a free trial that allows you to test out their tools at no cost or risk before you decide to purchase.
DEXAssist Solution: AI-powered Efficiency Delivered Simply
Practices looking to maximize the advantages of AI-assisted diagnosis and treatment planning, while minimizing the time and resources needed to implement it, have a simple new option: DEXassist Solution with AI-enabled 2D findings. DEXIS Imaging Suite v10, brings in assisted intelligence functionality through an integration with DTX Studio™ Clinic, allowing practices to leverage the award-winning software’s assisted intelligence functionality right from DEXIS Imaging Suite.
With a single click, this AI functionality enables users to instantly identify up to six pathologies on 2D X-ray images. What’s more, quick and easy installation means your staff can begin using AI technology in every room of your practice right away, driving efficiency and productivity.
With the ability to focus AI findings on six areas of interest in a matter of clicks, the DEXassist Solution also powers fast, accurate diagnosis and treatment planning with diagnostic confidence. The DEXassist Solution additionally makes it easy to share AI findings with patients in an understandable format, promoting case acceptance, patient engagement, and patient satisfaction.
With a 30-day free trial that starts when you sign up, we make it easy to bring DEXassist Solution to your practice. And with DEXIS’s commitment to continual innovation, you know you’ll have access to the latest technology backed by exceptional support.
There’s no question AI in dentistry is here, and here to stay. Embracing AI tools today will help prepare your practice for a future of fast, accurate, early diagnosis and treatment planning, with maximum efficiency and productivity. The DEXassist Solution helps make the promise of AI a reality for your practice, with simple and quick installation, seamless integration with a system you already know and trust, and expanded analysis of pathologies that support patient outcomes.
Article by, DEXIS.
Sources
Medical Economics; Majority of patients would trust AI more than human physicians for diagnosis, survey finds
Journal of Clinical Medicine; Patients’ Perspectives on Artificial Intelligence in Dentistry: A Controlled Study.