SINGAPORE: Q & M Dental Group (Singapore) Limited, a leading private dental healthcare group in Asia, has entered into a collaboration agreement with IMUE, to develop an AI-enhanced dental treatment decision support system for the management of common dental problems.
The clinical management of dental problems is highly dependent on the diagnoses of the dentists which require a great deal of knowledge of, amongst other factors, the various risk factors, treatment plans, treatment outcomes, individual patient’s conditions, and incidence and progression rates.
As dentists are limited by and differ in you cognitive functions, these factors combined may result in a divergence in diagnoses and subsequent treatment plans made by different dentists. The AI enhanced dental treatment decision support system will put in place the best dental expertise that not only provide the most appropriate treatment but also automate and optimize the involvement of human judgement.
The Group continues to launch initiatives to convert these challenges into advantages, further improving the quality of treatments received by patients and patient experience.
The AI Project is focused on the development of AI algorithms to intelligently assist dental treatment decision-making. The end product will produce the most comprehensive treatment plans in the best interests of the patients and will aid the dentists in ensuring early and/or complete detection of dental problems.
Further, it can be used as an adjunct training tool which the Group can leverage upon in the continuing education of its pool of more than 200 dentists.
International Medical University (IMU) is the largest private premier higher learning educational institution in Malaysia owned and operated by IMUE, a company incorporated under the laws of Malaysia. The development of the AI system will involve expertise from IMU School of Dentistry, responsible for the development of the evidence-based decision tree, and the IMU Institute for Research, Development and Innovation (IRDI), in-charge of getting results into the AI system and validating them.
The evidence-based decision tree will be developed based on available research sourced by lecturers in IMU and strengthened by anonymised data. These will then be further verified by a panel of dental specialists at Q & M.
The AI system will draw on the dental knowledge and expertise of Q & M, which has the largest collective of qualified dentists and dental specialists in private dental healthcare in Singapore.
The system will be able to provide evidence-based treatment plans that further enhances the insight of the dentist as well as increases patient confidence in Q & M. It will also reinforce dentists’ ability to discuss preventive measures with patients, to reduce the risk of patients contracting further common dental problems by analysing the patients’ profile in real time.
Q & M will own the rights to the technology and the AI Project will be funded through internal resources. Q & M is also in the process of registering a patent for this AI-enhanced dental treatment decision support system.
Dr Ng Chin Siau, Group Chief Executive Officer of Q & M commented, “The welfare of our patients is paramount. This AI-enhanced support system will help further develop our patient-centric approach which respects patient autonomy by increasing their understanding about their own health. Our patients will be able to receive personalised diagnoses and treatment plans which take into account their own specific characteristics. Patients will also receive advice on preventive measures to minimise the risk of succumbing to oral diseases in the future.
“Evidence-based treatment options will be made available to dentists in real-time, improving the decision-making process while ensuring more standardization of treatment plans across the Group. Greater uniformity of standards and more control over the treatment planning process further enhances our ability to provide consistent, higher quality dental healthcare, which is key to our regional
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