Dentsply Sirona recently hosted the Smart Integration Awards at the Heidelberg Print Media Academy, where 24 female dental professionals were recognized for their work. The awards focus on the expertise of women in dentistry, and the company’s intention to integrate this expertise more closely into the development of new products. Contestants traveled to Heidelberg from Germany, United Kingdom, France, Switzerland, Norway, Finland, and New Zealand.
Entries included image collages, presentations, photos, and essays demonstrating innovative approaches to the optimally networked practice of tomorrow, while at the same time integrating patients in the best conceivable way.
Topics ranged from voice control for future treatment centers, visualized therapy plans for enhanced patient communication and intraoral cameras with artificial intelligence to a fully networked dental practice with the treatment center as the focal point.
Dentsply Sirona recognizes that more and more women are seeking to qualify as dentists. Currently, in many countries, more than 50% of the people studying dentistry are women. And that number continues to grow.
“Women are making their mark in the world’s dental industry,” says Susanne Schmidinger, vice president global brand marketing and clinical affairs at Dentsply Sirona Equipment and Instruments.
In order to develop solutions that are perfectly coordinated to meet the customer’s requirements, Dentsply Sirona involves dental professionals in the development of new products relating to the treatment center, from the very beginning.
“In order to develop products that are perfectly coordinated to the needs of dentists, we want to integrate a broad range of expertise in our product development process, right from the start. We are very pleased to have been able to attract more dedicated dentists to our expert network, in the form of the participants,” says Schmidinger. “In this way, individual customer requests have already been implemented in the current product generation of the treatment centers Teneo, Sinius and Intego.”
As members of the Smart Integration Network, the winners are entitled to participate in an exclusive education program. It consists of training sessions, workshops, and seminars that cover numerous specialist subjects relating to treatment centers, and it should enable them to explore the full potential of technological developments.
Following the awards ceremony, the first Expert Development Program was held at the DS Academy in Bensheim. The issue of “Smart Integration” was the focal point. Featured lectures and practice sessions were dedicated to how treatment processes can be optimized through networking and digitalization, and how they can be made more efficient and ergonomic in day-to-day practice.
