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Hello everyone. I am Ryan Mohamed.

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She her pronouns with
Becker's Hospital Reveal.

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Thank you for tuning in to the
Becker's Healthcare podcast series.

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Today I'm pleased to be
joined by Dr. Cindy Work,

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senior Vice President and Chief
Clinical Officer at Sage Dental. Dr.

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Rorick, thank you so much for
joining us today. How are you?

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I'm good. I'm good, Mariah.
Thank you for having me.

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It's always a pleasure to
talk with the Becker's team.

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Of course. I'm so happy
to have you on today. Um,

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and before we dive into our conversation,

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could you please introduce yourself and
tell our listeners a little bit more

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about your background?

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Sure, of course. So again,
Dr. Cindy Rourke and, um,

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grew up in Tennessee and ended up
going to dental school in Boston.

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And I ended up, like most
people with dental school, um,

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practicing up in the area
where I went to school.

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So I stayed up in the northeast,
practiced for about seven years,

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and then I moved to Florida and I thought
I'd only do this do d s o thing for

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about a year. And that was
probably 20 plus years ago. So, um,

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it turns out that I've done private
practice and really enjoyed that and I've,

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I've lived in D S O land for quite
a while, but I did divert for a, um,

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a short period of time
to Vanderbilt and, um,

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helped rebuild their multi-specialty
dental clinic and work on their medical

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school staff. So lots of diverse, uh,
experiences to bring to the table.

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Yes, absolutely. And thank you
so much for sharing that. Uh,

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with that we can dive right into
our conversation today. So, Dr.

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As we are still in the
beginning stages of 2023, um,

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the district continues to evolve
rapidly into this new year.

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Can you share an overview of 2023
trends and where you think industry

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is now?

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Oh, sure. Of course. AI
pretty much is everywhere.

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It has exploded. And what's very
interesting about that is, you know,

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prior to the pandemic, people wouldn't
touch AI components. It was, you know,

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just a bad movie on Netflix or
something like that, you know,

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nobody really understood it, didn't
know what it could do. And, um,

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and really post pandemic and on into
now you have just seen an absolute

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explosion of AI-based products
and services for dentistry.

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And I'll explain more about that in a
second, but, um, if you think about it,

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just even when you open the news
today, chat, g p t is everywhere.

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I think they,

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the average human really does have
some sort of concept of where AI is and

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what it can do,

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whereas before it was a little scary to
people and they weren't really sure what

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to expect. Now we actually have, um,

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patients and members of the public who
are aware of AI and what it can do.

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So that's really, to me, as I see
2023 and where we're headed, I,

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it's all about ai, it's everywhere,
it's ubiquitous, but, um,

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but more specifically where I see it
penetrating first and mo most deeply,

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I guess I would say, uh,

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it would be computer vision
programs and those would be the,

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the Pearl AI to look, look at
your X-rays and annotate them, um,

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overjet, denti, ai, all these, um, tools.

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They are versions of computer
vision, AI products. And, um,

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I think they're fantastic because what
they do, and you can stop me, Mariah,

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at any point, but, um, what I wanted
to say is, is really for a patient,

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you have no idea how amazing this
really is because your x-rays now

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almost will have a single
version of the truth.

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So you don't have that situation where
you go to the dentist in Seattle and you

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get a completely different diagnosis
than you get when you go in Louisville,

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Kentucky. Right. You,
you want, if it's decay,

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it should be decay in
whatever state, right?

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But that's not the way dentistry
has traditionally been.

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So now we have this automated tool
that goes ahead and puts bone loss,

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puts decay, it reads something
like, I mean, depending on the, um,

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the product anywhere from 300
to 3000 pixels is the degree of

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sensitivity, whereas the human
eye is like 35, 40 pixels.

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So clearly this can do something we can't
and they can do it better and it can

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come up with a standard. So for
me, it's, it's all about AI in 23,

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but I do have a few.

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More. Okay. Yeah, no, that's perfect.

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AI is definitely becoming the
next best, uh, best thing. Um,

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and I wanna thank you so much for sharing
that insight and I never wanna stop an

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expert from speaking on
their focus <laugh>. No.

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But also on the same topic of
digital Street evolving, um,

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digital twins in Digital
Street has now emerged. Um,

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where do you see digital twins future
in the digital space, if you could say?

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Oh, absolutely. I think, um,

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I would see digital twins first
penetrating in the kind of the dental

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school arena. And if you think
about it, at least right now,

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dentistry is a psychomotor skill. So
you can learn everything, you know,

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with your brain,

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but then you've gotta learn it with
your hands and be able to reproduce it.

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And that's something completely different
from, for instance, what a GP in, uh,

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medicine would do, right? Um, so
you're doing the, the diagnostic side,

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but you're also the surgeon and
you have to get your hands there.

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So if you think about a digital twin
and that whole metaverse, you know,

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now you have the ability to train
people with real hepatic in a real

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immersive environment and their hands
actually get the skills they're supposed

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to get as you learn how to do
these things. So I see it in,

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um, in terms of dental schools for sure.
I see it in terms of advanced training,

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for instance, um, you know,
I, I work with, and for, uh,

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D S O we have about a hundred practices
and probably the most common question I

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get as we're looking to bring
a new doctor on board would be,

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can I place implants? And, you know,
my first thought is always like, oh,

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I don't know, can you place
implants? But I, but I'm joking.

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My point is dental schools don't
really, um, for undergrads at least,

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don't really allow for a lot
of hands-on implant placement,

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if any at all. Some, some allow none
and most allow none at this point.

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But anyway, so, so people
have an interest in doing it,

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but we aren't really taught
how to do it at school.

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And so you've got this big gap, and
I don't want people practicing on,

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on sh patient, I want you
to know what you're doing.

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Well now I've got the opportunity
to deploy this metaverse kind of ai,

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um,

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tool where they can actually get time on
task and real hands on and learn to do

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that in an immersive environment so
that when they walk into the patient's

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mouth, it's not the first time
they're trying it that way. So for me,

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I think it's just got an amazing
applicability to the training,

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the hands-on training side.

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Yeah, those are really good
points that you brought up.

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And dentistry has continued to catch up
to other industries, which is fantastic.

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Um, however,

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are there any areas of opportunity
you still see in industry for growth?

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Oh, for sure. Um, probably the,

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the biggest thing that I see is, um,

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it surprises me that a lot of insurance
carriers, some of the big ones,

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and I'm not gonna name names because
they don't deserve it, but, um, there,

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there are some huge industries that
are still almost completely paper-based

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and in, you know, 2023,
that's just preposterous,

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right? You can't access, um,

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claims information or adjudication
or anything like that. And so I,

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I ca hate to keep our
harping on ai, but um,

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they developed a lot of these computer
vision tools for the insurance industry.

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And what that means is if I'm
using it to annotate x-rays,

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if I'm using it in my clinical
office within the next six months,

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I'm gonna be able to auto adjudicate
my claims because I'm submitting an

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X-ray real time and it's being
approved real time, um, by the carrier.

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So this,

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this shutting down that timeline between
when you file a claim and when you get

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paid when it's approved and knowing for
a patient that it's either covered or

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not covered, I think those are
really important things. Um,

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just from the business standpoint, not
from uh, the patient care standpoint,

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but from just a patient
behavior and experience,

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it's really important because the number
one thing you see patients complain

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about at a dentist would be,
uh, billing issues, right?

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And that's because quite often you do
the work and then you send it off to the

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carrier and it may or may not get
covered or it may get downgraded,

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all those things. But now with ai,

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we can link the patient's plan
directly with most of the carriers.

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We can submit this x-ray so we can know
real time what they will and will not

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cover. So from a patient
transparency standpoint,

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that's really key to a great experience
that no surprises bill 30 days later

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kind of thing. Um, I,

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I think that is an area where
we really have to step up,

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up because the technology's there and,

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and there are again are some
carriers that are huge that have,

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have fallen behind, and I think
they have to catch up. That's,

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that's where we really have
to step up to the plate. Um,

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secondarily I would say, uh,

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it would have to be in really, I
don't care what system they use, but,

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but getting a,

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an AI penetration on the computer
vision side where decay is

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standard, um, you know,

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that's really important for the
industry because patient trust is super

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important and if they think they
get different diagnosis everywhere,

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they'll continue to shop.
And we don't want that.

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Yes, absolutely. And Doctor,

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as a patient who is always
frustrated with billing <laugh> with

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healthcare, that is great
that you brought that up.

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It's horrible.

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It, it really is.

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And it can make someone not want to get
healthcare when everyone really does

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need to go. Right. Um, but
but before I let you go,

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would you happen to have any
closing thoughts for our listeners?

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Well, I do. I was gonna say there
are, it, I, I said ai, you know,

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has exploded and it has, there are
actually a couple of other things,

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I think maybe two to watch out for,

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for 2023 because I'm seeing an
explosion of two different things.

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One would be 3D printing,
no question about it. Um,

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and in the pa you know, technologies
like that have always been around,

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but now what's happening is you're
combining the 3D printing with some AI

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technologies so that,

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that when these dentures or
braces or things pop out,

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they're, um, a finished product.

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Either the doctor doesn't have to sit
there and stain or glaze or polish or

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any of those things. And so they've,

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I I wanna call it de-skilling
it such that if I'm really just

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pressing a button and this filling is
coming out or these dentures are coming

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out, that's so easy that almost
anyone would adopt. Right?

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And I think we're getting to a tipping
point where a lot of 3D printing will

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come into play. That's
one. Um, secondarily,

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I would definitely look out for
all kinds of connected devices now.

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And by that I mean, you know,

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maybe test your bacterial
levels of your perio at home,

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those kinds of different
things that can be done,

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I think from a public health
standpoint, those are pretty cool. Um,

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and the last comment I
have for you, Mariah,

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is actually pretty interesting to me. Um,

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I was actually on the phone about a
week and a half ago with a company in

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France, and they, um, are try, you know,

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getting ready to go through f d a
approval on an autonomous robotic,

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um, machine where you use your scans
and you merge it with a C B C T

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and then, um,

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you tell the robot what to
do and it does the work for

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you. And I literally,

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it just cracks me up because
it's like years and years ago,

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no one thought self-driving
cars would ever be a thing,

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and they're edging in there.

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I don't think anyone ever thought a robot
could do the work of a dentist, right?

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But I assure you, at some point they
will be, they'll use our brains,

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but they won't use our hands. Um, so
that's really the fascinating stuff.

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I think where dentistry's
headed is mind blowing.

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Yes. That definitely seems exciting and
almost nerve wracking at the same time.

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Exactly. I know. But yeah,

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I love where the future is headed and I
wanna thank you so much for those final

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thoughts, doctor, and thank you so
much for joining me on the podcast.

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Of course. It's been a
pleasure speaking with you.

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And I'll also like to thank our
podcast sponsor Sage Dental,

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and you can tune into more podcasts
for Becker's Healthcare by visiting our

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podcast page at becker's
podcast.com. Thank you again, doctor.

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Thank you. You guys have a
great day. Appreciate it.