Digitizing the Facebow: A Clinician/Technician Communication Tool.

Area of Science:

• Dentistry
• Dental Technology
• Digital Health

Background:

• Clinician-technician communication challenges persist in dentistry.
• Traditional analog facebows are used for orienting maxillary casts during mounting.
• Inefficiencies and inaccuracies can arise from conventional methods.

Purpose of the Study:

• To introduce and evaluate the Virtual Facebow App as an alternative to traditional analog facebows.
• To assess the impact of the Virtual Facebow App on efficiency, accuracy, and cost in dental cast mounting.
• To explore its potential to enhance clinician-technician communication.

Main Methods:

• Development of the Virtual Facebow App, a dental software application.
• Comparison of the Virtual Facebow App with the traditional analog facebow for maxillary cast mounting.
• Statistical analysis of occlusal accuracy, lab time, and total time.

Main Results:

• The Virtual Facebow App demonstrated increased efficiency in mounting dental casts.
• Enhanced accuracy in occlusion was observed with the digital method.
• The Virtual Facebow App resulted in lower overall costs.
• Statistically significant improvements (P<.05) were noted in occlusal accuracy, lab time, and total time.

Conclusions:

• The Virtual Facebow App offers a novel and effective alternative for dental cast mounting.
• The digital approach improves efficiency, accuracy, and cost-effectiveness.
• This technology serves as an additional tool to improve communication between dental clinicians and technicians.