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You sat in on educational sessions exploring topics
that elevate dental care as a critical element
of whole person health. You've witnessed firsthand how
digital technology is revolutionizing
patient outcomes
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Hello. This is Cameron Cortejano with the Becker's
Dental and DSO review podcast.
Thrilled to be joined today by doctor Seth
Gebry, who is senior director of clinical AI
Innovation at Heartland Dental. Doctor Gebry, thank you
so much for being here today.
I appreciate you having me on.
To start us off, can you introduce yourself
and, tell us a little bit about your
background?
Sure. My name is doctor Seth Ghibbry. I
am senior director of clinical AI and innovation
for Heartland Dental.
I am
a first and foremost, I am grounded in
faith. I'm a follower of Jesus Christ. I'm
the father of 2 sons who are moving
out of out of the nest of the
house and,
husband of 25 plus years.
Been in dentistry for a a few decades
now. It's amazing how fast time goes. And,
I was a I've been a multiple unit
practice owner over the years, and I've been
super involved in technology really over the last
20 plus years.
And then in that time, I've really
kinda grown into
the innovation side of things, especially in the
AI
AI realm over the last 5 years, obviously,
coming in coming to a head these last
couple of years here.
Great. Thanks,
so much for that.
What are some of the biggest issues
that you are currently following in the dental
industry?
I think when I think of issues, I
think of especially right now, there's a number
of economic factors at play.
Post COVID,
it's like the landscape changed,
in regards to workforce
and,
the amount of employees and economic factors. So
there's all these external pressures, I think, on
on dentistry.
And so when I think of issues, I
think of that environment,
is challenging, and it's challenging. We've got we've
got pace a patient population that's got greater
debt load than they've ever had before. Things
cost more than they ever have before.
And, then from a standpoint of we've got
people leaving the workforce. So we're competing with
different entities now for team members.
It's always a struggle to find great team
members that are passionate about their patients and
passionate about dentistry. And so I think we've
seen a reduction in, like, the hygiene workforce
and and just people leaving the workforce in
general. And so the competition
for
great employees is higher than it's ever been.
And then it also takes we've maybe got
a more educated
patient population than we ever have before with
the Internet and with access to information.
And so you really have to up your
game with the delivery of services. And so
I think those are some of the biggest
issues that I see right now are, like,
external environmental things.
Some really cool things
that are going on in that space too.
Like, there's
the interstate licensure act that's that's going on
with a number of states. I think it's
up to about a dozen of them now
that are that are working to allow dentists
to to have licensure in one state, but
to work in other states to make it
easy for them to to move. And I
think that's that's part of the dynamic that's
at play too with an employee change is
people are more mobile in society now than
they were,
30 years ago. And so those changes,
over the years have just have created benefits,
I think, for us as a as a
country, but it also has created,
issues that that we need to focus on.
Definitely. I think that the the interstate compact
will definitely help with,
that hygienist shortage,
at least in the states that have joined,
because that has been a really big issue
for a lot of dentists
and dental practices and DSOs,
for the past
number of years?
Well, I think it's just challenging team member
recruiting as a whole. I mean, what we
do is hard, and I and I I
think that's important to recognize. And so, it
takes so much compassion and so much,
empathy, and we are in a patient patient
business, and we're patient focused. We're we're clinicians,
but we're healers. And so having having the
right team members in place that understand
those dynamics that play just just make it
hard to find the right people that fit,
that have that are really passionate about it.
Yeah. Definitely.
Something,
that I'm curious to get your thoughts on
are what are some of the things
that you're most excited about in dental industry,
right now, and what are, some things that
are potentially making you a little bit nervous?
Super I mean, obviously, based on my title,
I'm I'm super excited about,
AI and and software innovation within dentistry. And
I I mean, I have been for a
number of years, and I just think
the advances that we're getting with with computer
software and with computing power
have just are just exponentially gonna move things
forward. I mean, over the over the course
of the years, we we've gone from manual
X rays to digital X rays. We've we've
had things, we've had scanners. And scanner technology,
I mean, used to have to powder and,
you know, used to have to have contrast
on teeth. And there's so many
enhances from a visual and an optical
situation, never mind just from a online scheduling
and and practice management software. And so there's
so many advances in that realm.
And and within AI, having things that
and helps to show findings. And, obviously, it's
super important
to lay out the fact that the doctors
are the ones that are diagnosing. The the
doctors are the ones that have the relationship
with the patient. So that clinical autonomy
is so key, and it's something that
that
as technology goes, maybe makes me a little
nervous that that might lose focus. And so
it's important on us as as leaders in
the industry to really be focused on making
sure doctors maintain that clinical autonomy, that as
technology and as innovation goes, that it doesn't
push doctors out of the as of the
decision makers.
There's nothing that should be between that doctor
patient relationship, in my opinion. It's a local
based service. It's in a community based service.
There's so much more to a patient than
records or or x rays or even a
scan.
I mean, what's going on in their life
comes into play,
the stresses they have,
there's like, what's going on in their family,
their work, their their environment. And so I
think it's important to make sure that doctors
are maintaining their clinical autonomy.
But, I mean, there's things like, having
having opportunities
with things like Curadon,
which is a biomimetic
regeneration
medicament that will help,
catch things earlier, help help really fill fill
incipient lesions.
And then there's there's cool technologies that are
gonna have new products out, so there's things
you can see with AI where you're catching
radiographic AI or catching things earlier and now
having opportunity to utilize
tools like Curadon or other preventive things to
to fix it earlier. Because what we know
is within dentistry, the longer we wait to
treat
something, then the more expensive, invasive,
problematic it becomes. And then I think being
able to address things earlier and catch things
earlier
is super, super beneficial both from a patient
standpoint and from from my standpoint from a
clinician. Because once you drill on a tooth,
you're
really starting that road of restorative
needs for the rest of that that tooth
life or that even that patient's life.
Super excited about
too is innovations that are bringing medicine and
dentistry together. So I really think there's gonna
be some major breakthroughs over the next 5,
7 years
in inability to
identify
and
head off
major medical systemic things early based on dentistry.
It can be inflammatory markers within the body.
It can be,
cardiac issues, cancer issues,
diabetics,
early onset diabetes. There's so many different things
that I think we will be at the
forefront on because,
we as clinicians see patients on a regular
basis when a lot of times within medicine,
it's more of a
wait till a problem. So we just have
that relationship
based mindset of of typically seeing people a
couple times a year for their recares, and
I think we'll be at the forefront,
as health care moves forward
with innovation. I mean, there's some really cool
stuff that's being developed with salivary testing, but
also with
kind of ongoing
evaluation of
kind of care needs, those kind of things.
Then the flip side of that, what makes
me nervous about that is making sure there's
standards in place. There's gotta be a regulatory
aspect of things that help protect the public,
and and that's just,
so it's that it's that fine line of
jumping on the bandwagon of being an earlier
earlier adopter of technology, but also making sure
that that it is something that's vetted and
proven out and and has gone through a
regulatory process.
Yeah. Absolutely. I think there's been a huge
push industry wide within the past couple of
months and and few years,
to kinda
improve the integration between,
medical care and and dental care.
And I think you make a great point
that it's great to be at the forefront
of these,
kinda new developments and things like that, but
it's also important that, it is vetted and
it it does make sense to kinda do
these things and is beneficial for
both the patient
and the the provider.
No. I I mean, I agree a 100%.
And I think,
how you manage change within your office
as a clinician and as a leader in
your office
is super important,
because whether it's your your team, how you're
communicating about things, the adoption process. I mean,
I've got so much technology over the years
I've had that I've bought, and it just
goes into a closet. I mean, we must
call it the the technology graveyard, so to
speak, whether it was different scanners or lasers
or,
certain items that just sounded great or,
and I I think about, like, just some
of all the stuff that I've had over
the years that you you get so excited
about. You go to a show or you
hear about, you're like, oh, I buy that
and then just put it away and don't
use it. So I think to be effective
with it, you have to have to deal
with how you implement and how you how
you kinda manage the change of technology too.
Yeah. Definitely. That makes a ton of sense.
And then the
last question is, in your opinion, what will
the most effective health care leaders need in
order to be successful,
within the next 2 to 3 years?
I think
it's gonna sound really weird.
Success, I think it's important to be nice
and consistent.
I think
we are inundated by so much division. I
think having a positive mindset and a and
a mindset to bring people together is is
critical. But then also talking about the change
management aspect, I think the most effective leaders
are they bring a mindset of growth and
of positivity and bringing people together. So I
think that's from a leadership standpoint and then
managing change. And so really understanding and diving
into
how change affects your organization. So how change
affects the landscape of what we do
because
it is hard. No matter we we think
it it might be a little thing,
to change.
I mean, I'm not even thinking about, like,
changing software, but adding something to
a patient visit. And we don't realize that,
okay, we add this technology to a patient
visit. It might make the the patient visit
go up 5 minutes, and that puts more
pressure on a hygienist or a business assistant
or
a a dental assistant or the doctor trying
to explain what's going on with the technology.
So there's so many different stressors in what
we do day in and day out. And
so as we think about
the future in the next few years, change
management is is so critical to think about,
how we approach it, how we manage it,
trying to make it as smooth as possible.
I know
it's funny as I went to my doctor
recently, and they made a change in their
software. And they were promised this change was
gonna be easy and smooth, and,
it's amazing how how long it's taking them
to work through the changes because,
just because somebody says it's easy doesn't make
it easy. And so I think it's important
as leaders,
that we really sit down and think
think deeply about
how it really affects each position within an
office, both from a patient standpoint, from a
team member standpoint, from a clinician standpoint,
because
that's really gonna help,
help drive things forward or help continue things
that are going well. And so I I
think, 1, change management.
2, having a positive growth mindset because bringing
people together,
both from a team standpoint and from an
from a patient standpoint. You want a patient
that comes into a positive environment, and so
making sure you're creating that,
as a leader is super critical in my
mind.
Yeah. I think that's a great point, to
think about
not only the big picture of how this
new tech or this new software
will
overall benefit the practice, but also how it'll
impact each person in the practice,
as well as the patient is definitely
a a good way to think about things,
at least, I think it is.
Well and there's always things that we don't
foresee. So
no matter how much you can think through
the change,
there's always things that we don't anticipate.
And so then it's how do you respond
to those stressors. And are you responding in
a in a stressful
are you responding in a negative manner, or
are you responding in a positive manner knowing
that we all face
many, many problems each and every day? And
so it's like, do you have a,
an ability to to solve problems regularly, both
small and large? And I think that's in
a positive manner, and I think that's critical
too because,
there are no matter how you how how
much you think through things, you're never gonna
you're never gonna think through all the all
the variations that are gonna come into play.
Yeah. For sure.
Well, thank you for joining us today, doctor
Gebri, and sharing your valuable expertise and insights
into the dental space.
It's been a pleasure speaking with you, and
I look forward to connecting with you again
in the future.
Alright. Thanks for having me, and I really
appreciate your time today.