Скачать или смотреть Is Increased Digital Efficiency Coming Your Way? (July 2023) - The reSource Minute

The reSource Minute - July 2023

Video Transcript:

Hi, this is Chris Bentson, and it's time for another reSource Minute. Today's topic, "Is increased digital efficiency coming your way?"

When we talk about digital orthodontics, it's in three buckets- it's with aligners; it's with mass digitally personalized braces, like what I'm wearing right now with LightForce; and it's with remote monitoring. Those are the three big "digital buckets" that I think about in regard to efficiency.

I had the chance shortly after the AAO to visit Hong Kong and attend the International Orthodontic Foundation Symposium (IOF), which is really a scientific weekend of what research is being done outside of the United States. One of the companies that was talked about a lot was called Graphy, and this is a company that's developed a plastic that's got 'memory' with it, kind of like wires that have memory with them. The idea is you could wear these aligners instead of changing them every week, maybe change them every two, three, or even four weeks.

That would cut off a lot of costs in production. It would be convenient for the patient. Instead of a 50 aligner case, maybe have a 25 aligner case that goes the same amount of time - but is very promising. And there's been a lot of scientific research published on this, as you can see on this screen. Another thing I heard about, that I thought was very exciting was clear aligner coatings.

If we could coat our aligners with things that would prevent us from having cavities, white spot lesions, and things like that - wouldn't that be cool? And there's a company in China that's doing some work on this. They just finished an in vitro study, and they're going to a randomized clinical trial now. So that's some exciting ideas.

On the mass digital custom braces side, are they more efficient? Are they not? We now have a published article that came out in the JCO in July, and it actually has some profound data in a retrospective study that compares it with analog braces, in consecutive cases, being started and debonded with LightForce and about a 40% efficiency in number of appointments, and treatment time with digital braces.

So the answer is, I think, yes, the digital world is going to have a huge efficiency impact. Some of it's not here yet, some of it is, but you're going to want to move to digital. So make your plan for the last half of this year about where you need to invest time and effort in becoming more digital. It's the future.

And that's the reSource Minute we thought you'd want to know.