Читать книгу Digital Dentistry - Группа авторов - Страница 25

The digital era is completely transforming the ways in which people interact, work, and live. In many areas, the number and types of jobs available are changing. At the same time, entire professions, markets, products, and services rise or disappear. The dental profession is also being impacted by the digital transformation. In a digital dental clinic, treatment workflows use computerized technology that can affect dental teamwork at all levels: administration, support personnel, receptionists, dentists, hygienists, and dental technicians.

Administration personnel and secretaries can quickly store and analyze large amounts of patient data, using dedicated management software, improving efficiency and diminishing the quantity of paper used. The dental hygienist will need to be able to understand and use high technology equipment such as dental scanners and digital x‐rays, while support personnel should also be able to maintain biosafety measures in highly sensitive machinery. This means that, for instance, the hygienist could perform intraoral scans and be able to analyze and correct mistakes during the procedure if necessary, using specialized software under dentist supervision. Currently, dental hygienists and even dental technicians in most countries do not have digital dentistry training in school, making the selection of specialized personnel in the market more difficult. Therefore, with the adoption of digital trends, members of the dental team will need special education for the use of workflows, equipment, materials, and methodologies.

Another important aspect is that digital dentistry adds tools to aid in treatments that still follow the same principles of dentistry. The adoption of digital dentistry allows for enhancement of treatments and abilities obtained using conventional analogue techniques. For instance, oral surgeries can be more accurate and faster by using surgical guides to orientate drilling procedures (see Chapters 6 and 7). Digital imaging and new software tools are useful to enhance oral diagnosis. New materials such as zirconia and new ceramics improve esthetic outcomes. Machinery can work continuously with accuracy and speed that no human is able to achieve.