We have written a bit about teeth and dental care, but we don’t cover tele-dental applications often. The only teledentistry application we covered in the past was MouthWatch’s Teledent software platform. Teledent employs an intraoral camera to capture images along with video teleconferencing. We also covered dental care coaching with Proctor& Gamble’s Braun group’s Oral-B 7000 rechargeable toothbrush that works with a smartphone app to track brushing time, areas, and modes.
This year at CES 2021 Philips and its partner smart dental company Toothpic were Innovation Award Honorees for outstanding design and engineering in the Health and Wellness category. The partnership’s telemedicine dental app’s design and engineering caught the CES 2021 panel’s attention. The Toothpic app lets users send self-photos of dental problem areas to certified dentists for consultation. Toothpic currently has a teledentistry network of more than 1,600 dental providers.
Participating providers use the Toothpic app to analyze the tooth selfies, combining high resolution imagery, artificial intelligence, and data-driven tools with professional insights. Users can choose one of two reports from Toothpic. A $10 Direct Care Report based on a single photo addresses a specific issue within six hours. For $35 Toothpic supplies a Complete Care Report. A Complete Care Report, which takes up to 24 hours, is an in-depth report on the patient’s oral health based on six user-supplied photos. Toothpic reports include personalized diagnostics, treatment options and related costs, plus access to a directory of insurance providers.
