Committee Corner - Digital Era Defines Dentistry

Dentistry defines the art and science of diagnosis and treatment of individual’s teeth with help of current medicaments and scientifically proven technology. Digital dentistry is currently founded as the new innovative passion in dentistry. Today, dentists do more than just drill and fill of their patients’ teeth; they improve the quality of life of their patients through diagnosis, treatment and prevention of oral diseases, conditions involving teeth and surrounding tissues. To deliver all these components together to the patient, the digital dentistry has now became the integral part of dental treatments. Digital dentistry includes electronic practice management software (patient records), digital photography, digital radiography, patient communication, digital impressions, computer aided milling machines, and many more. Digital dentistry is more than just a hype. When properly implemented and with professionals fully educated, the return on investment in this technology can be excellent; higher patient satisfaction and shorter appointment time in practicing dentistry can be experienced. Being at the forefront of dental technology, Boston University Henry M. Goldman School of Dental Medicine has become the first school nationwide to integrate digital dentistry to provide state-of-the-art technology to its students and patients. Being a part of this institution and being in dental profession for over a decade, I believe digital dentistry provides four major benefits over conventional dentistry:

• Patient safety and comfort
• Improved clinical outcomes
• Efficiency of workflow
• Team safety

Advancement in technology helps many industries improve their efficiency and productivity, and the dental profession is no different. For example, incorporating computer-aided technology enables you to ease the communications between your practice and your dental lab. With that being said, the beauty of using digital scan is that you are able to review and revise the scans before even sending them to the lab. This process can benefit to patients as well as the dentists by cutting down on time and resources. In short, not only do these digital advancements allow you to provide your patients more accurate results in a shorter time, but they can also improve patient care while making you more efficient.
 
Since we are in a digital age now, using some of the traditional techniques just leaves us years behind. As the concept of digital dentistry continues to advance, only time will tell what it will have to offer in the near future. It would not come as a surprise to most of dental professional community if digital dentistry become the standard of care within the next decade. Just like every other technological advances, this too will continue to evolve and will require dental community to keep up to pace with continuing education, but this should not keep one from getting on-board with this exciting revolution in the field of dentistry, now!  

Contribution by Jignesh Rudani, AS '17
Diversity and Inclusion
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