Professional of dental health 

A dental hygienist is a licensed oral health professional who provides preventative dental care. My main responsibilities include examining and treating oral diseases such as gingivitis or periodontitis and providing education on proper oral hygiene practices. I also do dental checkups and controls for children and one of the new things I have done is one year old’s dental checkups via video appointment.  

One of my current tasks has been coordinator deputy in elderly program in dental health. I do enjoy varied missions in my work and that surely keeps me interested in. 

I do work alongside dentists but otherwise my work is very independent. I would say that my most important role is in promoting good oral health and preventing dental problems. And that is why I encourage you to brush your teeth twice a day and clean between your teeth daily. So, I cannot be without sharing a tip: try flosser or soft picks! 

Digital tools in dental field  

The most important digital tool for me is the patient information system called Lifecare. There is lot of information we need to collect like every surface of every tooth. Lifecare helps to fill in the dental status and figure out patient’s oral health. It also helps to read patient X-rays, which is one of the most important things when we are examinating the oral health of a patient. For video appointments I am using a new digital platform called BeeHealthy. It helps to guide the right patient to me, and we can have online conversation with cameras on and share some files at the same time. We use quite a lot of Microsoft Outlook and Microsoft Teams for communication and meetings with other co-workers. Currently we are using Microsoft Excel for shift planning and that is something we need to change. Titania is a digital platform for shift monitoring and important in our large work community!  

New tools of social media 

I have to say that I am pit tired of social media and have been avoiding it. So, after a pause of it, I think I can compare the difference between the good and bad benefits of it more clearly. Social media can be a source of inspiration in many ways. I think it is good to have a perspective of different styles of how to do things. It can help to think outside of the box and achieve something new. Humans are kind of herd animals and researchers have shown that we do need contact with others. Social media has been opening a new door for that. It can help some people to rebuild their social skills or meet new people on a low threshold. In other hand it can be cruel world for some. People lose their tolerance in how to face others and how to speak to others with respect. 
You can choose what you will be showing on social media so you can decide to show only good benefits and sides of things that are affecting you. That is something you cannot hide in “real world”. Writing in social media can be taken literally, so lots of misunderstandings happen quite often I think.  
But let’s see what tools I chose – it was quite fun to get to know a few new ones!  

Dall-E 

We do use quite a lot of pictures and drawn figures to help a patient to understand their oral health. I think this AI-tool could make some new visualizing pictures of patient’s own state of oral health and that way help them to understand and pay attention more to it.  

DeepL 

I am facing quite a lot of foreign patients in my work and sometimes not only language, but also cultural differences can be challenging between me and the patient. We do use interpreters to help communication but sometimes I am not sure if the interpreter actually knows what my meaning is about. I think this digital tool could help me to convey the right information for patients by written instructions.  

Vimeo  

We are constantly trying to think about how to reach young people. Youngsters and children are the group we are prioritizing in dental health. TikTok and Instagram are quite familiar platforms, but Vimeo could be the one for making fun and educating videos for younger people about dental health! We do need to keep up with young people’s lifestyle and communicate with them in their ways. I think that is how we can affect the benefits of taking good care of your oral health.  

Workeen AI  

This one was not on the list, but we are in great deal of need of sift planning system. This AI-powered tool could make our work more efficient and easier. We have quite a large work community and a lot of dental nurses that are switching between the treatment rooms and work partners, such as dentists. Currently we are using only Microsoft Excel, and I think that is too much hard and pointless work because there is only one employee who is trying to control all in our work community, and everyone’s shifts one by one. AI-powered tool could help to make switching positions for every employee and by that make our workdays varied.  

Pi 

In my current position as a coordinator in the elderly program I would use this for developing our operating model. AI-tool could help me to improve the program because I am currently working on my own in this field. We do need to develop collaboration between employees in the nursing homes for the elderly. This AI-tool could help me to understand more both sides of the professionals working with them.

The elements of successful use of digital applications are easy and effective to use. Applications cannot be too expensive and there should be the possibility for everyone to use them because that is and should be all about digitalization in social and healthcare. Health digital applications should improve people’s health and inspire people to take care of themselves.  

Here is a picture powered by AI: e-platforms

What did I learn? 

Overall, I learned a lot of new digital tools but at the same time I found out that some of them can be similar compared to each other. Artificial intelligence is a big thing nowadays and will be guiding all of us in the future more and more.  I think these tools are not yet fit in community health sectors. Speaking of resources and lack of money determine a lot of things what we can do and what we cannot. I think the private sector is improving faster from this point of view. The wellbeing services county needs to create its own working spaces because it can bring savings.