At one of the key meetings for dental hygienists, MouthWatch introduced TeleDent® and its benefits for improving community oral health and how it can make hygienists an indispensable part of new patient outreach for their dental practice and hygiene programmes.
MouthWatch has created the world’s first all-in-one, fully integrated teledentistry system, making it easy for dental hygienists to reach communities outside of dental offices to improve oral health screenings and dental triage without major investment in hardware, software development, or training.
According to company founder and CEO Brant Herman: “TeleDent™ works as a stand-alone platform allowing, for instance, an RDH to easily and effectively provide oral health services such as screenings and preventative care outside of dental offices in their communities. TeleDent includes both store and forward and live video technologies so patients’ oral health conditions can be evaluated by a dentist or specialist as needed. Using a tablet or laptop and intraoral camera, hygienists can now connect patients at a range of sites such as nursing homes, schools and more to effective screenings and time-sensitive triage of dental issues. This can lead to early treatment and new in-office patients for practices.”
Teledentistry is the newest entry in the rapidly growing field of telehealth, which promises to connect medical professionals to patients who need care or guidance, regardless of location.
While telehealth has been effective in improving care and treatment across a range of medical specialities, teledentistry has been slow to arrive in dental practices, public health programmes and community clinics. These providers are often not prepared to address the technological requirements of teledentistry, ranging from HIPAA-compliance to creating efficient methods for managing remote patient evaluations. TeleDent™ is positioned to effectively and affordably address these issues.
At RDH Under One Roof, one of the premier meetings for dental hygienists, MouthWatch introduced the benefits for oral health outreach when dental hygienists are empowered with TeleDent™. Until now, the costs and complexity of teledentistry has meant it was out of reach for individual hygienists or private practices.
MouthWatch, LLC was formed in March 2012 with the mission to improve communication, dental care, education and connection between oral health care providers and their communities. TeleDent is the first and only product on the market that easily, securely and affordably puts these technologies in the hands of the patient and dental practitioner.