Dr Dhesi, how can digital technologies be used to deepen a patient’s concern about his or her oral health without causing undue anxiety or fear, and why is that important?
Ultimately, as clinicians, it is our job to educate our patients on the benefits of optimised oral health. We are challenged in that many dental conditions do not necessarily exhibit pain or discomfort and patients can often ignore them. Through digital technologies such as intra-oral scanning and photography, we now have a better method of demonstrating both short- and long-term risks. Simply put, the patient can now see and understand the current condition of his or her oral health as well as the consequences of leaving a condition untreated. We have found that these visuals are so powerful that most patients will be concerned enough to comply with treatment recommendations.

What specific digital tools or methods do you recommend for deepening patients’ engagement and concern about their oral health?
This is a challenging question to answer. As dentists, we are lucky to have several great digital technologies at our disposal to help our patients understand their oral health status. For me, an intra-oral scan is an absolute must. We scan every patient in our practice with our Primescan, and we repeat these scans every year or two. Intra-oral scans are such a powerful tool to help open up the discussion on various conditions affecting the gingiva and the dentition. Ultimately, it allows me to help patients connect the dots on how different conditions can be interconnected and, more importantly, to explain the long-term consequences of these conditions. Patients always respond favourably to visual information, especially when it involves their mouth!

In the current economic climate, how do you balance addressing patients’ financial concerns while encouraging them to prioritise necessary dental treatments?
This is where digital technologies are vital. We have already referred to deepening patients’ concern about their oral health. If an underlying condition may have significant short- or long-term consequences for oral health, most patients will pursue treatment options to address this. However, it is paramount that the dentist takes the time to provide visual information so that patients will still want to pursue treatment, despite the challenging economic climate.

“Through digital technologies such as intra-oral scanning and photography, we now have a better method of demonstrating both short- and long-term risks.”

What strategies would you recommend for getting the entire dental team on board with using digital technologies to increase treatment acceptance?
This is a great topic. Every dental office should embrace the task of getting all members of the dental team on board with the various dental technologies available. In the last few years, our dental hygienists have also begun scanning patients, and they can now see how important it is for them to track gingival levels and to be able to discuss oral conditions. We have found that using a platform such as DS Core to bring all the information together on one screen is very useful. It allows our team to have discussions without the need to have multiple windows open on different software.

We believe it is beneficial for the team to discuss dental conditions and their long-term consequences. However, we encourage them to allow the clinician to review the available options with the patient.

Would you like to add anything else?
Ultimately, digital technologies have had a huge impact not only on the patient experience in our practice but also on the clinicians and the team. We see much more engagement by patients and the team in discussion around various oral conditions. We have observed that even our younger, less experienced dentists achieve a higher rate of treatment acceptance from patients. This is not surprising, since the advanced technologies available today really do help patients understand their oral health. Most importantly, these deepen their concern about their oral health, and this is a great development.

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