Teledentistry remote dental monitoring taking centre stage COVID-19

During the COVID-19 pandemic, many healthcare professionals are switching to the use of videoconferencing, apps and other technology systems to continue offering treatments for their patients while they try to reduce unnecessary visits to clinics - and orthodontic treatment is no exception to this.

Though it has been around for a while, dental monitoring has suddenly become more useful than ever before. Dr Usman Qureshi, one of our top specialist orthodontists, explains how valuable dental monitoring is at the moment and how it is helping him and his orthodontic team maintain effective and possibly more accurate patient care during the COVID-19 pandemic.

What is dental monitoring?

Dental monitoring (DM) is a software system used by our orthodontists that allows us to track the progress of your treatment with the help of artificial intelligence technology. You can download the dental monitoring app on your smartphone and take a scan of your teeth every week, which is then analysed by our orthodontist to monitor and assess your treatment progress.

What are the benefits of using dental monitoring?

Dental monitoring is a great system used by our Invisalign patients. It allows us to closely monitor your teeth every week using the scans you upload. This can not only improve the accuracy of your treatment but means you don’t have to take time out of your busy day to come in and see us. It allows you the freedom of travelling anywhere in the world whilst you are undergoing treatment!

The key advantages of using dental monitoring

• Fewer appointments are needed as we can monitor your treatment from wherever you are
• Easy and quick to use and portable so you can take it anywhere
• First-hand communication with your orthodontist or dental team through direct messaging on the app
• Faster results through closer monitoring

How does dental monitoring support patients during the COVID-19 pandemic?

Since COVID-19, there has been a greater pressure in dentistry to adhere to social distancing advice and reduce unnecessary visits to clinics. We have, therefore, made several changes to support this and the use of dental monitoring is one of them.

Dental monitoring isn’t only reserved for Invisalign patients: many patients with fixed and lingual braces are now making use of the system too, as it is a treatment that can be effectively monitored remotely in the same way. It ensures that patients only visit the practice when they need to be seen, and we determine this from the clinical images they upload using the dental monitoring app. In addition, any problems and difficulties that arise can be identified earlier which helps us to provide faster and easier access to orthodontic advice for our patients.

Online consultations

We are currently advising our patients to utilise remote consultations. Patients can now obtain clinical advice either through our SMILEMATE online digital consulting software or through Top Doctors, which has significantly improved patient's access to orthodontic advice.

For more details as to how the process for online assessment works, you can visit the Origin Orthodontics website, where our artificial intelligence system will identify if you need orthodontic treatment and provide an instant report for you showing the various treatment options available.

Visit Dr Usman Qureshi’s Top Doctors profile to read his latest articles and book an e-Consultation with him.