While adopting a chairside CAD/CAM system to mill same-visit crowns offers enormous potential for practice growth, many dentists have concerns about CAD design software and the time required to learn a skill that has typically been the responsibility of dental lab technicians. Conventional restoration design software begins with a “one size fits all” approach and relies on the technician — in this case, the dentist and their staff — to craft the various features required to make that restoration unique and meet the needs of the individual patient. While the number of dentists who have adopted same-visit dentistry has grown steadily in recent years, the complexity of traditional design software is one of the major barriers to more widespread adoption of chairside CAD/CAM systems.

But as with many other industries, artificial intelligence (AI) is revolutionizing same-visit dentistry. Harnessing the power of AI, the glidewell.io™ In-Office Solution features fastdesign.io™ Software that uses proprietary CrownAI™ technology to produce automatic restoration designs based on millions of individual crowns created at Glidewell and the patient’s unique morphology. When you use glidewell.io to mill same-visit crowns, you simply scan the patient, mark the margin and let CrownAI do the design work. The design takes into account the anatomy of the tooth as well as the morphology of the patient’s surrounding dentition, resulting in a restoration tailored to the specific demands of the case at hand. Your team need only confirm the crown proposal or use the available tools to amend it to your liking. When all is said and done, the crown design requires a single click in a majority of cases and is ready to mill in less than five minutes.

As a clinician who has worked with other design software and milling machines, Dr. Jeffrey Sprout of Evergreen, Colorado, can speak to the differences between glidewell.io and other chairside CAD/CAM systems on the market. “The design software included with the glidewell.io system is much more intuitive than the other software we had worked with, which made it very easy to learn,” said Dr. Sprout. The accuracy of the designs generated by fastdesign.io has helped streamline the same-visit workflow for Dr. Sprout and his team. “We know that the crown is going to fit, and it’s going to fit the first time. That kind of predictability has been huge for us.”

This AI-powered solution means that you don’t have to learn anything you don’t already know. Using algorithms developed in collaboration with machine-learning experts at UC Berkeley, the CrownAI technology behind the fastdesign.io Software’s crown proposals expands on what it has already learned about ideal contacts, occlusion, shape and anatomy with each new CAD restoration. And thanks to the science of AI, the storage and usage of this wealth of data is constantly improving the accuracy and precision of restorations milled in dental offices across the country that have adopted glidewell.io. This is just one example of how glidewell.io’s link to the lab is so beneficial to dental professionals.

This intuitive crown design software not only results in precise-fitting, patient-pleasing crowns in one quick appointment, but also frees up the dentist’s time to focus on patient care. Crown design with glidewell.io requires minimal effort, and many dentists opt to have their dental staff handle this element of the same-visit workflow. “You don’t want a system that requires hours and hours of training or specialized skill to use,” said Dr. Cary LaCouture, who provides single-appointment BruxZir^® crowns using glidewell.io at his practice in Parker, Colorado. “The glidewell.io system is intuitive enough for my whole staff to work with, and the support is there whenever needed.”

With other systems, the learning curve can be considerable, requiring that practices design crowns from scratch or work from inaccurate library teeth. This process is time-consuming and subject to significant variation from one case to the next. glidewell.io forgoes this “stock” approach in favor of a faster, more intuitive solution that addresses the unique aspects of each case — so you don’t have to. Dr. Scott Barton of San Antonio, Texas, who previously used CEREC^® to mill same-visit crowns before switching to glidewell.io, immediately noticed the accessibility of the fastdesign.io Software. “The learning curve is very simple,” said Dr. Barton. “The software’s intuitive, so even for somebody just getting into it, you can do single crowns on day one, and be comfortable and confident with it.”

The accessibility of the glidewell.io system smooths the path to getting started with same-visit crowns. Adding new technology and procedures to the dental practice has traditionally involved growing pains and a significant time investment for the dentists. This is not the case with glidewell.io, as recounted by Dr. Scott Barton: “You as the doctor, once you get that crown prep, can walk out and go see another patient,” said Dr. Barton. “The team can do the scan, get it set up in the fastdesign.io Software, and let the mill, technology and software do the bulk of the rest of the work.”

Dr. Thomas Rolfes, who operates a thriving practice in Costa Mesa, California, has had a similar experience. “Our team members pretty much handle the whole thing at this point,” said Dr. Rolfes. “The doctor working on the case will often go into fastdesign.io and mark the margins just to make sure that we’ve placed them exactly where we want them. But then we just turn the case over to the staff, who can always reach out to the Glidewell support team for help with a design if they need it.”

With glidewell.io, dentists and their staff can hit the ground running due to the simple one-click designs generated by CrownAI technology, the one-on-one training provided by Glidewell on the day of installation, and the constant support from experienced technicians at Glidewell, who use the technology every day at the largest dental lab in the U.S. The design process will be further simplified this summer with the introduction of MarginAI™, which will use machine-learning algorithms to automatically mark the margin for your approval — eliminating yet another step from same-visit dentistry.

Though it may seem counterintuitive for a lab to assist its customers in producing their own restorations, this endeavor is fully consistent with Jim Glidewell’s longstanding mission to provide dentists with the tools and techniques needed to deliver treatment to more of those in need. By making same-visit dentistry faster, more affordable, and more accessible to clinicians, the glidewell.io In-Office Solution is the most convenient, efficient means yet of making that vision a reality.