The third annual Teledentistry Innovation Awards honored five dental providers and organizations for bringing teledentistry to the industry in the past year.
Teledentistry company MouthWatch created the awards, dubbed the "Tellies", which were presented virtually Feb. 5.
Here are the winners and their categories:
1. Scott Howell, DMD. Still University/Arizona School of Dentistry & Oral Health (Mesa)
Category: Dentist/specialist
Dr. Howell created an oral health program that has trained more than 300 students in teledentistry, including how the technology is used to reach diverse patient populations and assess digital records.
2. Jingjing Qian RDH. Your Special Smiles (Jerome, Idaho)
Category: dental hygiene
Ms. Qian and her dentist, Brooke Fukuoka DMD, developed the Guided Oral Hygiene Program, which trains caregivers how to collect information via teledentistry and uses teledentistry to help caregivers with patient oral hygiene regimens.
3. The University of Rochester (N.Y.) Eastman Institute for Oral Health
Category: Oral health program
The university published significant studies on teledentistry and installed teledentistry in oral health programs that provide care to underserved patients in the community.
4. Barry Raphael, DMD. The Raphael Center for Integrative Orthodontics (Clifton, N.J.)
Category: COVID-19 response — provider
Dr. Raphael implemented teledentistry during the pandemic and developed new ways to offer patient education and monitoring.
5. Advantage Dental (Redmond, Ore.) from DentaQuest Care Group
Category: COVID-19 response — oral health program
Advantage Dental recently rolled out teledentistry to more than 80 practices, which were critical in addressing patient needs during the pandemic.
More articles on teledentistry:
40% of parents haven't tried to take children to dentist amid pandemic: 5 survey findings
Delta Dental of Arizona to fund emergency care for uninsured patients
California OKs RDHs to administer COVID-19 vaccine under dentist's supervision