Virtual Dental Care streamlines dental screenings, connects patients to providers with Microsoft Azure, reduces paperwork for schools by 75%

Promoting early detection and dental wellness

VDC, a teledentistry solutions provider in the US state of California, is on a mission to expand dental care access to underserved communities throughout the country. Founded in 2016, VDC is focusing on AI adoption in dentistry to reach more patients and drive earlier diagnosis of dental issues, especially for children. “The biggest problem in the dental industry in our country is that access to dental care is limited,” says William Jackson, Doctor of Dental Surgery and Chief Operations Officer at VDC. “About 60% of people in the United States don’t go to the dentist on a regular basis.”

For dental issues, early detection and prevention can help improve patient outcomes, and providers throughout the healthcare industry are adopting this mindset. Patients with limited access to dental care for geographical or financial reasons are unlikely to see a dentist until a dental problem has advanced. “Today, you only know you need dental care if you’re going to the dentist, and that is the first barrier we wanted to break down,” says Jackson. “We wanted to give people tools at home to begin to analyze their oral wellness.”

As a part of the healthcare industry, VDC prioritizes security to protect patient information and treatment plans and appreciates that the Microsoft Azure ecosystem facilitates an environment that complies with Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) regulations. The teledentistry provider has been a Microsoft customer from the very beginning, and it turned to Azure products to create a secure, AI-powered technology solution. “One of the things I like about Azure is that we can apply a standard like HIPAA to our entire setup, and Azure helps us identify changes we need to make to reach that compliance standard,” says Dean Gutierrez, Senior Software Development Engineer at VDC.

Expanding dental care access with AI-powered innovations

To focus on wellness and prevention, VDC began training an AI application to evaluate its secure repository of dental images and X-rays. The company uses Azure Machine Learning to support the high-performance computing needs of its Smart Scan technology and streamline development and deployment. With Smart Scan, a patient simply takes a series of five photos with a smartphone or camera and submits them to VDC, which runs AI algorithms trained by dentists to help detect common issues, such as decay, broken restorations, broken teeth, plaque buildup, and gum inflammation.

With the entire infrastructure based in Azure, the company’s technology easily scales up to handle large group dental screenings, such as for a school district using a mobile dentistry clinic. “Before, when we used a datacenter, scaling up was very expensive because we had to buy additional hardware and licenses,” says Gutierrez. “Now, VDC can increase its capacity in Azure SQL and Azure Virtual Machines with just a few clicks.”

To streamline large group dental screenings, VDC also automated the administrative paperwork that is usually required. For a school environment, school-specific registration pages allow parents to provide permission, complete an online questionnaire, and learn about the value of early disease detection. This process simplifies student admission and creates a digital patient record, reducing the need to manage paperwork. This electronic medical record facilitates a thorough assessment of potential health hazards and a preventive healthcare mindset.

Providing preventive care to school children and reducing administrative paperwork by 75%

VDC had an opportunity to test its technology on a large scale in 2024 when it participated in an academic study with a dental school in Northern California. California Assembly Bill 1433 mandates that parents submit an oral health examination for incoming public-school students, but not all parents have the dental care access or resources to comply with this mandate. In the study, VDC scanned several hundred students using its Smart Scan technology and compared results with a mobile hygienist’s in-person oral exam.

The company’s automated processes reduced the amount of administrative paperwork required for the scans by 75%. Parents whose children participated in the study received feedback on the results, and VDC helped with referrals and sent records to potential providers to empower parents to access dental care. The reduced administrative burden allows dentists to spend more quality time with patients without worrying about paperwork.

Innovating with generative AI to empower patients with resources

VDC continues to experiment with new technology solutions from Microsoft that connect patient data, including using AI to unlock better patient experiences by simplifying routine tasks and increasing dental team collaboration. “On the image side, we’re working on showing patients how their teeth will look after a certain treatment and how that improves their oral health,” says Nishank Singhal, AI Software Engineer at VDC.

The company sees its relationship with Microsoft as a long-term collaboration that helps VDC harness the latest technological innovations in a secure, cloud-based infrastructure. “I’ve always appreciated that any time I’m stuck, I can reach out to Microsoft for support. Even better, our dedicated Digital Cloud Solution Architect, Devonte Sykes, has helped us tremendously and has been a valuable asset as we continue to grow and scale with Microsoft,” says Gutierrez. “Microsoft always has top-of-the-line tools when it comes to development and makes it a lot easier to develop applications. That’s why we so heavily favor Microsoft.”