USA: Artificial Intelligence is becoming more and more applicable in several commercial sectors and professions around the globe. Its ability to provide faster and improved functionality is what healthcare workers at the FDI believe will be a significant implication in the strife towards improving healthcare delivery and patient care, especially in the field of dentistry.
Written by the FDI AI Working Group, the White Paper highlights four objectives: defining AI; c displaying detailed cases where AI can benefit oral healthcare delivery, education, and research; identifying areas where AI can facilitate FDI’s Vision 2030; and highlighting potential risks of AI and the need for the community to engage and enforce standards, regulations, and best practices of AI.
The paper also elaborates on the implication of AI in four branches of dentistry namely: individual patient care; community and public health; workforce planning and monitoring; and education and research.
FDI believes without a doubt, that using AI can open doors for oral health professionals in many areas such as diagnosis, data analytics and predictive dentistry.
However, potential risks and limitations such as bias and limited generalisability of applications also exist. The paper also sheds light on the need for data protection and to ensure that AI works for the benefit of the people and that more effort in these areas shall eliminate the risk factors in the otherwise phenomenal technology in oral care delivery, education and research.