I remember vividly the multi-color pens and the two-sided pencils for perio charting. I remember the shorthand and the short cuts we used for that 8th piece of paper that we had to update in the patient’s chart. I also remember the offices that were fully paper with traditional film radiography and their dip tanks, the hybrid offices that used paper documentation but e-billing practices, and the offices that were fully digital.  

Ask almost any dentist or hygienist whether technology has made practice easier over the past decade, and you’ll probably get a complicated answer. Few clinicians would willingly give up digital radiography or e-charting. At the same time, many would admit that every new piece of technology seems to introduce another login, another software platform, another training session, or another workflow that doesn’t quite communicate with the last. Somewhere along the way, technology designed to simplify dentistry has also made practicing dentistry feel more complicated.  

I don’t believe dentistry has a technology problem. I believe it has a workflow problem. Those two ideas sound similar, but they’re fundamentally different. A technology problem suggests we’re waiting for someone to invent the next breakthrough scanner, imaging platform, implant system, or artificial intelligence tool. A workflow problem suggests we already have many of the tools we need, but we’ve become remarkably good at creating islands of innovation that don’t always connect to one another. Practices aren’t struggling because they lack technology; they’re struggling because every new solution often solves one problem while creating another place where information, people, or processes have to bridge the gap. 

That thought stayed with me throughout the Dentsply Sirona Implant Solutions World Summit in Gothenburg, Sweden. Like most large industry meetings, there was no shortage of innovation on display. New products, new research, and new digital capabilities were everywhere but the conversations that continued to replay in my mind after returning home weren’t about the next device, they were about the growing realization that dentistry’s next major advancement may have less to do with inventing something new and more to do with making everything we already have work together. 

Looking past the latest technology 

To be fair, Dentsply Sirona isn’t the only company thinking about this challenge. Across dentistry, manufacturers are investing heavily in digital workflows, artificial intelligence, cloud-based platforms, and connected ecosystems. Some companies have built impressive end-to-end solutions, while others focus on solving individual pieces of the clinical journey. 

The reality is, that relatively few organizations operate across enough of dentistry to have a meaningful perspective on what happens as information moves from diagnosis to treatment planning, to delivering care. That broader view is what made conversations with Dentsply Sirona CEO Dan Scavilla and Chief Commercial Officer and should be winner of the best dental executive surname, Aldo Denti particularly interesting. Regardless of whether a practice uses their products, executives responsible for one of the industry’s broadest portfolios have a unique vantage point on where workflows succeed, where they break down, and where the profession and its professionals still have work to do. 

When I asked what a successful private practice might look like ten years from now, neither executive immediately pointed to another revolutionary piece of equipment. Instead, both described practices built around efficiency, integration, and adaptability. “The application of connected dentistry, digital dentistry, seamless workflows are all out there,” Denti said. “I think ongoing education so they can remain at the cutting edge and be competitive would be major.” Scavilla approached the same question from a slightly different perspective, arguing that innovation has to improve both efficiency and patient care. “When you think about having to compete against other types of business models, innovation is going to have to be one of the drivers of being able to create a referral pool that is sustainable,” he said. “We have to focus on efficiency, but we also have to focus on clinical outcomes.” 

When systems don't work together 

That explanation sat with me because dentistry has never been short on innovation. Every year brings faster scanners, better imaging, smarter software, improved restorative materials, and increasingly sophisticated digital tools. Yet despite all of those advances, many practices still rely on people to connect systems that don’t naturally communicate with one another. Team members become the integration point because the technology often isn’t. And it isn't hard to find examples of this; a treatment coordinator exports files from one platform only to upload them into another. A hygienist documents findings in one system while opening a separate application to review and explain imaging. A dentist moves between implant planning software, restorative software, and practice management software just to complete a single case. Front office teams re-enter patient information that already exists somewhere else because two systems don’t communicate. None of these tasks are particularly difficult on their own, but together they add minutes to appointments, create opportunities for mistakes, and slowly chip away at efficiency throughout the day. 

When I asked why digital dentistry still feels fragmented after decades of advancement, Scavilla offered an assessment that many clinicians will probably recognize. “The people providing the solutions are very fragmented,” he said. “Then you come into the dental market, which is incredibly fragmented. The combination of those two can lead to piecemealing out solutions.” It’s difficult to argue with that observation.  

Dentistry has historically evolved through individual innovations rather than coordinated ones. Practices purchase technology one decision at a time based on need and available capital. One company may have the scanner they prefer. Another may offer the imaging platform they like best. Practice management software comes from somewhere else. Patient communication, implant planning, and restorative workflows may all come from different vendors. Individually, each purchasing decision makes perfect sense. Collectively, those decisions can create an environment where technology no longer feels like a collection of solutions. Instead, it feels like a collection of systems that require people to bridge the gaps between them. 

“The lack of standardization is a problem,” Denti said. “Companies are trying to create closed ecosystems. That’s a competitive advantage, but it has to be simplified.” Every company wants customers to remain within its own ecosystem, and there are obvious business advantages to building comprehensive platforms. At the same time, dentists don’t wake up hoping to become experts in software integration. They invest in technology because they believe it will help them deliver better care, improve efficiency, or create a better experience for patients and staff. When that technology requires additional work simply to communicate with other systems, some of the value it promised begins to disappear. 

Denti continues, “Right now it’s patched together, and it’s not ideal. If you have all that fragmentation, you’re sending your clinical help to go learn all of those things, which is pulling them away from actually generating the revenue.” Every disconnected system carries a cost that isn’t always reflected on an invoice. It appears in duplicate data entry, onboarding new employees, troubleshooting software, managing updates, and teaching staff members how to navigate multiple platforms that all function differently. It appears when practices hesitate to adopt a promising new technology because they aren’t sure how it will fit into everything they already own. None of those activities improve patient outcomes, but they consume valuable time throughout the workday. 

Can AI solve the workflow challenge? 

The newest buzzword in almost every industry seems to be AI so I would have been remiss in not asking if that was the solution we needed to create avenues between the fractured hardware and the software that it relies on. As Scavilla explained, “It’s only as good as the prompt that you put in,” he said. “If you don’t understand how to use it, you’re going to get bad results.” Denti added, “AI is an enabler, it’s not the solution.”  In an era where nearly every announcement includes some reference to artificial intelligence, both executives consistently returned to workflow. Artificial intelligence may eventually make many aspects of practice easier, but only if it removes friction rather than adding another layer of complexity. Technology should simplify the work clinicians do every day, not require them to become experts in managing increasingly complicated systems. 

The next era of dental innovation 

Dentistry’s innovation pipeline shows no signs of slowing down. New scanners, imaging platforms, software, AI applications, and treatment solutions will continue entering the market at an impressive pace. That’s good for the profession, and ultimately good for patients, but after spending several days discussing the future of dentistry with industry leaders, I left Sweden wondering whether we’ve reached a point where innovation itself is no longer the limiting factor. 

For years, dentistry measured progress by what was new. A faster scanner, better imaging, more sophisticated software, or the latest AI application became the benchmark for innovation. Perhaps the next decade will be measured differently. The practices that separate themselves may not be the ones with the most technology. They may simply be the ones where every piece of technology works together so seamlessly that clinicians stop thinking about the software and return their attention to the patient sitting in front of them. If that’s where dentistry is headed, the profession’s biggest opportunity may not be inventing the next breakthrough. It may be finally connecting the remarkable technologies we already have into workflows that make practicing dentistry feel simpler instead of more complicated.