How Is Blockchain Technology Transforming the Dental Industry? – Cryptopolitan

The technological revolution has been making waves across industries, and the dental sector is no exception. Among the innovative solutions being introduced, blockchain technology stands out because of its transformative potential. This decentralized and secure method of recording data offers many advantages for the dental industry. 

In this Cryptopolitan guide, we look into how blockchain technology can be integrated into dental offices, how it can improve supply chain management, and finally, its potential role in research and technology within the dental industry.

Blockchain Technology in the Dental Office

Maintaining Digital Health Records

If patients see more than one dentist, they may have to go through multiple dental examination procedures that are repetitive. They might have to fill out forms repeatedly and provide their entire medical and dental information again and again. Due to this, they may not remember all the medications they have been taking. Also, they might not consider certain underlying diseases important and may forget to mention them. Moreover, they may be required to undergo unnecessary dental X-rays, which can expose them to radiation several times.

Dentists often face challenges in filling out dental records and documenting a patient’s oral and dental condition. This can lead to longer and less effective consultations, as well as longer treatment sessions. Misdiagnosis can also occur when a patient is referred to a different dentist. However, blockchain technology has the potential to streamline this process, resulting in shorter dental appointments and improved attention to detail.

Patients’ electronic health records (EHRs) contain medical history, medication orders, vital signs, laboratory test results, radiography, physician, and nurse notes, routine dental observations, and other Internet of Things (IoT) sources. Electronic medical records (EMRs) are highly sensitive personal information that needs to be shared among healthcare colleagues. Blockchain offers trust, accountability, and transparency to both EMRs and EHRs, making them an immutable and transparent history.

Dental Treatment Procedures

The combination of blockchain technology and IoT allows dental data to be safely stored and used for personalized patient care. This includes information like cleaning abilities, cavities, endodontic or cancerous lesions development rate, teeth anatomy, and even oral bacterial flora. With this data, clinicians are better informed for decision-making, prevention, and therapy. 

A different way to understand the use of blockchain in dentistry is that dentists are required to enter a comprehensive description of the treatment they have provided, including details such as diagnosis, clinical findings, decision-making, materials used, and the treatment process. This information is then recorded in the blockchain system, and each dentist is held accountable for their actions.

By allowing patients to access their treatment information, there is a lower chance of errors or neglect by the therapist during treatment. Also, because treatment documentation cannot be altered without agreement from both parties, this may prevent any unnecessary or unjust lawsuits by patients against healthcare providers. 

Prescribers can access information about a patient’s current and past medication history, as well as any known allergies, which may lead to modifications in drug prescriptions. This information can also help physicians make informed decisions during patient examinations, such as selecting appropriate medications that won’t interfere with lab tests and prescribing any necessary additional medicines. 

In prosthodontics, we can improve the production of exact-fit dentures by combining AI devices, like 3D scanners, with blockchain technology. This involves keeping scans and measurements of a patient’s previous prosthesis (such as complete dentures, single crowns, bridges, etc.) to ensure a better fit. 

Improving the Emotional Tolerance and Motivation of Patients

To ensure the effectiveness of most dental treatments, it’s important for patients to participate in regular recall sessions. Depending on their oral condition, these sessions should occur every 3 months to 2 years. Annual checkups also play a key role in maintaining overall oral health, preventing disease, and identifying any issues early on. Unfortunately, many patients struggle with dental anxiety, which causes them to miss appointments and develop worse oral problems. 

To improve patient treatment, we can input more specific information such as their cooperation, physical and psychological ability to handle stress, and the dates of their recall sessions. We can also monitor their brushing quality and frequency using AI-powered toothbrushes and a phone app connected via Bluetooth. 

By utilizing AI tools and blockchain technology, it becomes possible to secure and track a comprehensive set of information about patients’ brushing habits, including frequency, adequacy, or inefficiency. With that, potential mobile applications can be employed to monitor patients’ nutritional habits. 

This would not only make it easier for anxious patients who strongly refuse to visit the dentist to have online consultations but also provide useful information for their future dentists to determine the best way to manage their patient’s psychological and physical needs

Blockchain Technology’s role in the dental industry’s supply chain management 

Through enhanced traceability, efficiency, authentication, recall management, and promotion of sustainability, blockchain technology presents enormous potential for revolutionizing supply chain management in the dental industry. As we continue to explore and implement this innovative technology, the benefits for dental professionals and patients alike are bound to be significant.

Let’s look at the many ways in which blockchain can transform the supply chain in the dental industry. 

Transforming Traceability with Blockchain Technology

Blockchain technology can revolutionize the way we trace dental supplies from manufacturing to delivery. Each item, be it a dental implant or a pack of dental floss, can be tagged with a unique, tamper-proof digital identity on the blockchain. Stakeholders can track each item’s journey through the supply chain, providing an unprecedented level of traceability and transparency.

Increasing Efficiency and Reducing Errors

By utilizing blockchain technology for data management in the dental supply chain, we can dramatically reduce human error and streamline operations. Paper-based systems can be replaced by automated digital records on the blockchain. This not only minimizes the potential for mistakes but also significantly speeds up processes, saving both time and resources.

Authenticating Dental Supplies

Counterfeit dental supplies pose a serious risk to patient safety and the credibility of dental professionals. Blockchain technology can help tackle this problem. By storing the origin and journey of dental supplies on an immutable blockchain, authenticity can be verified at any point in the supply chain, helping to eliminate counterfeit products.

Enhancing Recall Management

Recalls of faulty dental supplies can be a complex and challenging process. With blockchain, the recall process can be streamlined and expedited. As each product’s journey is recorded on the blockchain, identifying the location of a faulty batch becomes much easier, enabling swift action to minimize patient risk.

Promoting Sustainability

Blockchain can also help promote sustainability in the dental industry. By tracking the lifecycle of dental supplies, from raw material sourcing to disposal, we can identify opportunities for reducing environmental impact and promoting responsible practices. The transparency provided by blockchain can encourage dental supply manufacturers to prioritize sustainability.

Can blockchain technology help in research and technology in the dental industry? 

Integrating Blockchain with other technologies

The integration of various technological trends into healthcare, such as information technology, nano-medicine, biotech, IoT, AI, augmented intelligence, social media, blockchain, personalized medicine, EHRs, wearable devices, etc., is enhancing healthcare results through a combination of diagnosis and treatment.

Blockchain technology with IoT, AI, and machine learning can revolutionize digital health economies by enabling devices to communicate with each other and share reliable data in real time. As a result, the focus of communication will be on devices rather than on people. Blockchain technology can manage many IoT-connected devices and coordinate their activities. 

By doing so, it enhances the processing of transactions, prevents failures, and creates a flexible framework that can support physical objects. Blockchain’s secure nature helps maintain the privacy and trust of data, reduces expenses by eliminating third-party entities, and facilitates quick one-to-one transactions. This results in reduced processing times, going from days to seconds.

Managing dental health data for research

The world’s digital expansion has led to the accumulation of a vast amount of health data and patient-generated data. This data can be used for clinical trials or shared among healthcare providers during the referral process. Managing health data effectively involves ensuring its integrity during collection and storage as well as addressing quick access and filtering options through user-friendly applications to streamline interoperability.

To improve research outcomes, it is important for patients, dentists, statisticians, organizations, and committees to easily share information. The use of blockchain technology can accelerate and secure this process. This shift in data authority from clinics and corporations to patients and those directly involved in the information could greatly benefit the research field. Blockchain technology allows for secure data exchange, where patients can directly upload their data without sharing sensitive information. By authorizing the use of purchased data, patients can benefit from privileges and payouts and sell their data to researchers at transparent prices based on a data value model. 

Improvement in the quality of clinical trials

Patients can choose to give researchers temporary access to specific parts of their data. This process helps in selecting patients for clinical studies based on the study’s inclusion criteria, resulting in faster and higher-quality trials with a larger sample size. Researchers benefit from accessing the most effective set of data and can use previous data for possible future purposes.

Researchers are reviewing old medical records to find new treatments and techniques for rare diseases. However, it’s challenging to study these diseases without demographic databases. Blockchain technology could make it easier to collect and preserve rare disease data, enabling better diagnostic approaches and treatment planning.

Similarly, patients can provide their data about unusual or understudied disorders for investigation using a pseudonym. This allows for better involvement of individuals who lack trust in research organizations and may be less likely to participate or go unnoticed in research due to a lack of accessibility or facilities. 

Moreover, blockchain technology enables transactions to undergo cryptographic validation, ensuring accreditation of data integrity and veracity while preventing malicious manipulations. Each user maintains a public record of all data, which is traceable due to time stamping. 

Conclusion

Blockchain technology, with its inherent features of decentralization, transparency, and security, has the potential to reshape the dental industry drastically. From streamlining operations in dental offices to enhancing supply chain management, and even powering research and technological advancements, the possibilities are vast and transformative. 

As we continue to navigate the future of the dental industry, embracing blockchain technology may just be the key to unlocking unprecedented levels of efficiency, security, and growth. The fusion of dentistry and blockchain signals a new era in healthcare, with the promise of improved outcomes for both practitioners and patients alike.