The Impact of Digital Healthcare and Teledentistry on Dentistry in the 21st Century: A Survey of Hungarian Dentists

AbstractBackground The era of digitalization has arrived at the field of dentistry. Teledentistry (TD), dealing with digital solutions in dentistry, is already used in practice; however, not every possibility is considered. In addition to digital workflows, patient communication, AI and online forums are available. Additionally, during the pandemic, remote patient monitoring and patient communication had to be solved with TD tools, thus causing a rapid spread of new tools. Methods A newly developed online survey was in a self-filling form. The Hungarian Medical Chamber contacted the respondents in a newsletter or e-mail. The Evasys survey system was used. The weighting procedure was executed by gender, age group, and type of settlement. A digital dental index variable was created and built with a linear regression model as a dependent variable. Explanatory variables are advantages, disadvantages, what would be necessary, experienced need from the patients and age. Results A total of 171 dentists completed the survey. The most well-known digital technologies are online conferences (96.5%), E-prescriptions (94.6%) and digital impressions (86.0%). Unawareness is the highest in the field of artificial intelligence in dentistry (50.5%), store-forward solutions (43.5%) and real-time solutions (41.8%). The digital dental index is 14.24 (standard deviation (SD) = 5.5) with a high power of the model. Conclusion Hungarian dentists are not aware of all the possibilities of TD. In addition to digital workflows, store-forward and real-time solutions can be beneficial to substitute face-to-face visits. TD can be used effectively to monitor changes in the oral cavity and to develop dental confidence and proper oral care habits. Our survey suggests that it is necessary and inevitable to integrate TD into both graduate and postgraduate education, which may form the basis of basic health care in the next decade.