Establishment, Implementation, and Sustainability of Digital Dentistry in Dental Schools

Digital dentistry technology and its workflows offer important benefits, including advancements in patient care and diagnostic capabilities. Dental schools have been adopting and integrating these advanced technologies into their educational and patient care practices. This perspective paper explores the challenges and issues encountered by a sample of dental schools in their journey of planning, implementing, and sustaining digital dentistry technology. Through a questionnaire, administrators responsible for digital dentistry from nine dental schools participated in interviews to assess the inception, execution, and maintenance of digital dentistry within their institutions. Responses were scored, enabling the ranking and classification of dental schools based on their identified strengths and weaknesses. While most dental schools demonstrated sound planning during the initial investment and implementation phases of their digital dentistry programs, long-term maintenance planning was less developed. Notably, financial sustainability for maintaining and upgrading software and hardware, as well as faculty succession plans, appears uncertain or lacking a clear plan for most dental schools. As dental education transitions into the post-digital dentistry implementation phase, it is imperative for academic leadership to address these identified gaps in sustainability and maintenance planning. Financial and personnel resources should be strategically deployed to ensure the continued success of digital dentistry programs in dental schools. The findings underscore the need for a proactive approach to long-term planning, encompassing both financial sustainability and faculty succession, to maximize the benefits of digital dentistry in dental education.