It has been estimated that as high as 46% of American dental specialist referrals go unfulfilled (Kelton Research).  A new company aims to help solve this problem by providing a secure platform to facilitate collaboration and communication between all providers involved in patients’ dental care.  After only 10 months on the market, over 1000 general dentists, specialists, and dental laboratories have adopted this new dental “collaboration engine”.  So, what’s the bright idea?  I recently had the opportunity to chat with Mr. Rohit Joshi, CEO of Brightsquid Dental Ltd., about their solution and vision for enabling dynamic information sharing among dentists, specialists, and dental labs.

Brightsquid is a secure, HIPAA-compliant, web-based platform that centralizes communication between dentists, specialists and dental labs.  In one secure dashboard, the network of professionals involved in patients’ dental care can interact, share and annotate images relevant to cases, receive alerts about the stage of treatment or prosthetic fabrication, and even share and comment on STL files from intra-oral and bench top scanners.  The “cool factor” is very high.  But more importantly, so is the positive impact on dental practices and labs.

• General Dentists:  For general practitioners, this platform can serve as a tool to help them have more control over their interdisciplinary cases.  Brightsquid allows for the creation of custom treatment sequences.  Any stage in a sequence can be referred to a specialist.  During treatment in the specialty practice, the GP will be automatically alerted to the progress during each stage of treatment.  The platform also allows dentists to generate lab prescriptions directly from it and to attach any relevant photos, imaging files, or other documentation.  To take it deeper, the GP can communicate via secure messaging and shared documents with specialists and labs for true real-time collaboration during a case.  All of this can be done while maintaining the privacy of patient data.
• Specialists:  For specialists, it’s all about communication.  When a patient is referred, the specialist is automatically alerted along with the preferred appointment date and relevant patient contact information.  Furthermore, the necessary case files from the general dentist are available in one secure place, accessible on the cloud from any computer.  Specialists can share notes and images with the referring dentist to ensure everyone is on the same page with the treatment plan and progress.  Furthermore, specialists who are involved in dental study clubs can use the platform to generate presentations and share securely with members of the club.
• Labs:  As mentioned earlier, Brightsquid allows a dentist to generate and submit lab requisitions directly through the platform.  It can serve as a dashboard for managing workflow of cases.  As a case moves through the various processes, the system can automatically alert the dentist to ensure he or she knows the status of the case.  Built-in communication features, such as document sharing, image annotation and messaging, can be used to clear up questions or to collaborate on the case.  In this way the lab can proactively communicate with the dentist rather than react to phone calls, missing information, and the like.  Labs and dentists can share intra-oral scan files in real-time and comment on them for a clearer understanding of case specifics.

It can be difficult for dentists and lab owners to keep up with aspects of a case that are in another practitioner’s hands.  According to Mr. Joshi, it is a goal of Brightsquid Dental to “capture information on what is happening outside the walls of a practice and use it to help build a community of simplified, collaborative, and optimized communication for better patient care.”  A growing number of dental professionals are joining that community.  I look forward to watching it develop.  And as always, I also look forward to hearing what you think about this article and any others I’ve posted.

For more information, check out Brightsquid Dental Ltd.’s recent press release about their first major platform upgrade.

Author’s Note:  I have no financial or commercial interest in the company and services mentioned in this article.  I simply like to learn and write about cool technologies, companies, and people in dentistry.