Chicago-based Aspen Dental has been on the forefront of dental AI and is exploring ways to use it in multiple ways throughout the company.
One use case for AI in dentistry is for the clinical side of things, where AI programs can help aid dentists in their diagnoses and help standardize across the industry. There is also the potential impact it can have from a business operations standpoint, helping make development platforms, project management and revenue cycle management more efficient.
Andrew De La Rosa, DMD, vice president of clinical support at Aspen, and Laura Sage, director, learning and development, doctor development, recently connected with Becker’s to talk about the continued development of AI.
Note: Responses were lightly edited for clarity and length.
Question: What trends in the dental and/or healthcare industries are you following this year?
Laura Sage: From a learning and development standpoint we’re really, really curious when it comes to AI. We’ve already invested in elevating some of our development platforms to include an AI integration, and even how we do project management, we’ve added an AI component to it, just to help make us even more efficient. If we’re really trying to stay on top of what the doctors need, what the business needs and how we’re evolving as an organization, one quick way to do that is to get on the forefront of what’s happening with AI. So I think it’s still very new, and we’re still constantly learning, but definitely something that we’re excited about.
Dr. Andrew De La Rosa: On the clinical side, it’s the same thing, when it comes to AI carries detection or RCM, there’s broader applications for AI almost everywhere. That’s why we have an AI team. We’re constantly digging in and just trying to hedge our bets in the right direction when it comes to AI.
We have a flagship location that’s in our headquarters here, where we test like crazy, and we’ve been piloting and testing so many different AI platforms right now. It’s going to be a game changer, and I can’t wait to see what comes out in the next six months to a year. What we’re rolling out organizationally should be really impactful.
