Associate Director Byrnes Laboratory, Ashley Byrne, discusses integration in digital dentistry.

What has digital dentistry done for your everyday work at the lab?

Digital dentistry, and particularly intraoral scanners like iTero™ dental intraoral scanners have really been absolutely game changing for us as a laboratory. The ability to receive a scan, assess it for the clinician, make sure the preps are right, spot any adjustments, any minor trimming we need, the path of insertion, a missing margin – that can be fed immediately back to the dentist. That really builds the relationship between us and the clinician, and of course with the clinician and the patient. It builds trust.

What elements of your workload have you been able to streamline?

We can very quickly overlay scans, we can overlay wax-ups, which we can’t do conventionally. Previously we had to pour the model, we had to trim the dies - it’s time consuming, it’s messy, and digital dentistry is a really sleek, clean process. I can check the scans literally with the patient in the chair. I can feedback anything that needs to be adjusted. If it does need to be adjusted, it’s not a case of putting a traction rod anywhere and retaking that huge ten-unit impression. It’s a case of using the little eraser tool maybe taking a small bit of the bite ridge or if the margin is a bit short, removing that tiny bit and just rescanning that one part.

How have integrations made a difference?

One of the nice things about iTero™ solutions is the iTero-exocad Connector™. What happens now, is the scans now come immediately through to my exocad™ software, so what I can do is immediately assess that scan. I’ll give you a prime example. Only last week we had a scan come through from a clinician. It appeared in our exocad™ software and we just automatically check the scans now. It was very clear to us immediately that we had excess saliva on one of the scan bodies, which came with a bit of distortion. That happens with all scanners, it’s just the nature of dealing with the mouth! We managed to immediately use the connector and direct message through our software straight back to the scanner. It appeared at the scanner that the scan body was potentially distorted, and amazingly we caught it before the scan body had even been unscrewed from the mouth!

The dentist realized the issue, and didn’t have to rescan all the arch, just the lateral scan body. They raised it from the scan, cleaned it, dried it, rescanned it, and within 3-4 mins I had the scan back. I checked it – perfect!

Normally that would be removal of scanbody, put the healing of back in again, send the patient away. And I’ve got to make the awkward embarrassing call of “the impression isn’t good enough, get the patient back, who is now frustrated, and redo the whole process.” By using the iTero-exocad Connector™, we managed to identify that as good as immediately and with a quick rescan, the patient didn’t realize anything was wrong. We saved chair time, patient’s trust has significantly improved, and there’s a great relationship between me and the clinician. But that could only be done if you are using a good intraoral scanner and a connector, like for example the iTero-exocad Connector™.

I would say to the doctors. So never thinking of your intra-oral scanner solely as just an impression taker, because it’s something vastly more powerful than that.

Would you recommend digital to your colleagues and clients?

With the benefits of digital for me, if I can have all of my customers using digital – I would! I think it’s definitely the way forward, and its game changing for anyone who wants to get involved in a new way of doing dentistry.

Interested in seeing how iTero™ solutions can support your shift to digital dentistry? Get in touch for a demo of iTero™ technology.

The testimonials and statements in this article reflect individual experiences and may not be representative of all users. iTero™ is a medical device. Please refer to the Instructions for Use and consult your local regulatory guidance.