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COMPANY PROFILES

Be brave ~ it’s a new world

Is Artificial Intelligence the friendly new giant in orthodontics, and beyond? Australia’s Mr Nice Guy in pioneering dental horizons, Andrew Holmes, tells Jade Richardson how tech genius, DentalMonitoring, promises a golden dawn across the fields of dentistry.

Jade Richardson

A remote island in ailand, Monsoon rising; birds are singing in the Sydney afternoon as the ordinary miracles of tech break the barriers of speed, sound, time, cash and distance to summon Andrew Holmes from his Aussie dental tech HQ to my wonky tropical island desk at the touch of a screen. Neither of us blink an eye. I haven’t even brushed my hair. Andrew Holmes, General Manager, is live on my laptop, fresh as a daisy, beaming with enthusiasm, sitting at the helm of pioneering dental innovations company, DentalMonitoring, for Australia and New Zealand, wondering if there’s a way to talk about AI in dentistry without freaking people out. I’m listening. Arti cial Intelligence freaks me out. As a professional writer, AI is without doubt, one of the biggest threats to the culture and viability of my work since computers killed the printing press back in the 1990s. It’s easy to get spooked by huge leaps in technology. It’s easy to keep plodding along too, hoping it will go away. It’s easy to feel threatened, when big change is in the air.

“We know that,” says Andrew. “It’s a massive change, and a huge new horizon. But when the dental industry realizes that this is a giant that is on their side – totally – we’re going to see huge bene ts, not just in ease, speed, accuracy at work, but in lifestyle, liberty and pro tability, and happiness in dentistry too. e research is already in on all of that,” he smiles. e fact is: AI is here. It’s in dentistry; it’s in just about everything. AI is already working for, and against you – right now, every day, because it’s profoundly and deeply interwoven already into the ordinary miracles we take for granted. Like video calls, for example, which connect us across the planet instantly, for free, and with the power to share screens, videos, presentations, stories and live birdsong in ways that were unimaginable not that long ago. AI can already diagnose cancer with unrivaled accuracy, it has already broken the barriers of time, speed and human comprehension to synthesize vast amounts of knowledge, images, data and research, and put all that right into the hands of anybody with a phone, which means almost everybody on earth.

And Arti cial Intelligence, in the hands of a dedicated team at DentalMonitoring, who saw this coming more than ve years ago, and devoted their business speci cally to bringing the revolution to dentists, has already been meticulously designed to work for dentists and their clients in ways that increase precision, intimacy, e ciency, safety, ow and enjoyment of the orthodontic experience. What the DentalMonitoring system gives orthodontists, basically, is the possibility of tracking and supporting patients in their own homes, between appointments, cross-referencing images from their own mouths against their personal treatment plans; and an AI database informed by more than 1.8 billion images, which can detect and report more than 135 potential treatment and oral health issues including open brackets, broken wires, gingivitis, abnormality, hygiene issues, misalignments, reluctant teeth, and incorrect use of aligners – and initiate the solutions. “All of this takes out the hoping and praying between scheduled appointments,” says Andrew. “It gives incredible accuracy to the treatment process, the ability for dentists to track and alert clients without having to put them in the chair between booked visits, and con dence, support and encouragement for patients that is unimaginable without this system.” “AI-based digital monitoring looks with incredible accuracy into the mouths of patients, as well as into the analytics of your practice,” says Andrew. “ e insights it can give about trends, patterns, strengths and weaknesses in the way you’re treating and managing cases is precise and easy to access through the dashboard thatmanages the system. Basically, you can discover at a single click, exactly how you deliver orthodontic care, where you’re excelling against your own benchmarks, and the national trends, and where you might have weak spots, or interesting anomalies that can be addressed.”

100 AUSTRALASIAN DENTIST