Product name: TeleDent
Manufacturer: Teledentistry
Company: MouthWatch, LLC
Category: Teledentistry
Why it’s a winner: TeleDent enables sharing of patient data, clinical information, intraoral images, and videos in real time or via store-and-forward technology. The platform enhances referrals, oral health screenings, clinician-patient consultations, and collaboration between GPs and specialists, group practices, and hygienists working under remote supervision. TeleDent’s enables convenient communication for patients and efficient collaboration between dental teams and external providers. This helps flatten the COVID-19 curve and maintain patient-provider connectivity.
What goes into the making of a winner? We spoke with MouthWatch’s Brant Herman to learn more about the technology behind the TeleDent teledentistry platform.
DE: What do you think helps TeleDent stand out in the field?
BH: TeleDent was designed from the ground up to meet the needs of clinicians for collaboration and seamless communication. With the addition of patient-facing communication, both via live video and secure messaging, TeleDent embraces the workflows and processes needed to make teledentistry work for a practice and its patients. We have built an enterprise-grade platform that meets the needs of the smallest private practice, while also accommodating the country’s largest DSOs and insurance carriers.
Furthermore, our understanding and passion for dental care is reflected in TeleDent’s approach to meet the needs of all practice types, while also bringing teledentistry to providers in a way that reflects their style of dental care. One example is integrated asynchronous and synchronous messaging and video conferencing. Providers are busy back at their offices, so it’s not always possible to conduct live video consults at every turn. Although they’re effective, much of teledentistry’s value comes from store-and-forward exchanges resulting in effective communication and coordination of care.
DE: Tell us a bit about your R&D design process. What are the challenges of setting out to create something unique?
BH: At first, we were looking to create something that hadn’t been done before. Many dentists didn’t see the value, and it was more limited to the applications of mobile programs, public health programs, and improved referrals. We learned a lot from our advisors, clinicians, and deep roots in these areas to build and iterate a product that met the needs of these providers and programs. We focused on educating the market and showing how the efficiencies for teledentistry were clear, albeit different from traditional telehealth. We offered TeleDent to numerous pilot programs across a range of applications and took what we learned to enhance the platform and better understand how teledentistry was needed. We iterate, make changes, learn quickly, and continue to develop. Features get refined or killed. Priorities shift. When you look at COVID-19 and the need for a stronger set of tools for patient engagement, you reprioritize.
Some challenges include managing the portion of the market in which there is misunderstanding, focusing on areas where there is a clear need and application, and supporting education to ensure a broader value is put forth to providers across all care settings.
DE: What’s next for MouthWatch?
BH: We will continue enhancing the platform for all providers—from the solo practitioner to the large DSO. Recent large-scale client needs emphasize the platform’s flexibility to create solutions tailored to enterprise clients. We see the value that these clients bring, and it helps enhance functionality across all of our client types. We are moving toward integrating teledentistry into the realm of patient- engagement tools to make the patient experience seamless and convenient. Reaching out to large patient bases in unique ways is on the horizon, as we look to connect patients to care regardless of type of coverage, access to providers, or patient profile. We want to make referrals an entirely new, more efficient high-touch process, connecting medical touchpoints to dental touchpoints. Incorporating artificial intelligence and machine learning to help support effective initial care delivery is also in the works. Teledentistry will play a key role in the dental office of the future, as telehealth has already become key in the changing expectations of patients. We plan to be there on that journey.
