How Straumann is shaping the dental landscape across different markets
HBI recently hosted an oral health webinar on ‘Consumer-centric trends in oral health: how technology is meeting evolving needs’, with speakers Dr. Neil Sikka, Chief Dental Officer at Bupa Insurance, and Sara Dalmasso, Head of Enterprise Solutions at Straumann Group.
Sara Dalmasso, Head of Enterprise Solutions, Straumann Group
The session explored the role of AI in dentistry and how to integrate it effectively, the link between oral health and general health, sustainability, and balancing clinical judgement with the use of technology. Post webinar, here HBI speaks to Dalmasso for a deeper dive on certain points (and new ones), to better understand how Straumann Group is shaping up the dental landscape and what its market learnings are.
How does Straumann Group meet the needs of different DSOs?
What makes Straumann Group unique is its collaboration with clinics of all sizes, including DSOs, which can range from national chains like Aspen Dental to regional groups and emerging DSOs. Dalmasso emphasises “no one size fits all” when it comes to evolving DSOs, from smaller ones to those with more than 1000 offices.
“The large DSOs really benefit from efficiency, scalability, and cost saving, which allows them to expand rapidly and standardise their operation across all locations. They have an ability to centralise, but they also must navigate a much more complex management structure and cultural integration,” Dalmasso explains.
“This is where we come in and offer them more customised end-to-end solutions that take into account all these variables, to integrate workflow and unlock efficiency gains at scale. We have built a dedicated enterprise organisation that focuses on and works with different levels of DSO stakeholders from the start of their journey until they evolve and scale.
“For example, we’ve partnered with several top DSOs in the US, and in one case, they wanted to ensure their patients that struggled with missing teeth or failing dentition obtained the best standard of care. So, we’re going to help them build an implant franchise from scratch. That means training their general dentists to actually be able to perform implant surgery. We will also work with them on the marketing side on how to convert a patient for them to accept the treatment.
“Overall this benefits the patient, the dental team, and, of course, the DSO itself. We’ve been able to increase the number of implant treatments by 140% in less than a year.”
For smaller DSOs, Dalmasso says they offer more flexibility, a stronger patient-centred approach, and likely a more tight-knit company culture. “They can very quickly adapt to changes in the industry, allowing their leadership to implement new policies and technology. They are funded, often have a driven culture, and show a really strong relationship with employees and patients. However, these DSOs usually struggle more with scalability, investment backing and centralised efficiency, meaning expansion will be slower or come with inefficiency.
“We can give another type of solution. Here, we might emphasise creating standardisation, process optimisation and access to more innovative technologies. We can tailor that with a mix of consulting, education, workflow customisation and data insights.”
Adapting to challenges and opportunities in different markets
Based in Switzerland, Straumann Group also has a strong global presence.
“While the US market is highly consolidated and very mature, we are also seeing rapid growth in other DSO models in other regions, but each of them come with their own nuances,” Dalmasso explains.
“We have big customers in the US who have been focusing on a type of treatment as their business model. There we have been able to drastically shorten appointment times from three hours to an hour and a half, while also limiting the number of steps for patients. We use software services and have moved the entire workflow to digital technologies so we can work much faster.
“Also, you can see that in the US there are a lot of macroeconomic challenges [related to] margin compression, staff shortages and higher capital cost. These enterprises are now focusing on improving operational efficiency and creating healthy economics rather than just footprint expansion.”
Other things to consider, according to Dalmasso, may be succession planning with many dentists close to retiring causing turmoil, meeting the needs of Straumann Group’s customers wanting to attract new dentists with state of the art technology (so staying on top of innovation), and using solutions to better communicate with patients and optimise the number of appointments.
“When you mix operational solutions leveraging AI and clinical solutions also leveraging digital technology, you’re able to address all these needs,” she adds.
“We’ve gained a lot of momentum in the US. We are now expanding and sharing all these best practices with EMEA and APAC.”
Straumann Group’s recently launched Enterprise Solutions brand also helps with not just talking to the dentist, but the CEO, CFO and Chief Medical Officer, for example, so they have a clear understanding of the Group’s mission and goals, helping to showcase what it can offer them.
Using AI responsibly in healthcare
Following discussion on this in the webinar, how does Straumann Group specifically keep the right balance between AI and human intervention in mind with its digital transformation?
“I think balancing the use of AI and ensuring accountability for its mistakes is crucial and one of the things we have to overcome in the market. What we do is take several measures to strike this balance efficiently. The first one is human oversight. The AI tools are designed to assist dental professionals not to replace them,” says Dalmasso.
“So for example, with our AI-assisted diagnostic tools for 3D planning using CBCT data, it’s used to enhance the clinical accuracy and safety, but the final decision always remains with the dentist. Continuous training is provided to ensure that the dental professional knows how to use the AI tool efficiently and effectively, which includes on the limitation of AI and knowing when to rely on clinical judgment.”
The Group also has systems to protect patient data, considers quality assurance with regular audits and quality checks, and ethical considerations by being transparent about the capabilities and limitations of evolving AI, also ensuring trust and accountability.
The case for internal AI use
In the webinar, Dalmasso mentioned the importance of Straumann Group’s use of AI not just externally, but internally too.
Elaborating, she told us, “We are committed to what we call ‘perform and transform’ digitally. So, how do we perform today and transform for the future? We have a concerted effort around upskilling our teams through an organisation-wide initiative we call Edge Up, which is very powerful.
“For example, we are testing generative AI like Microsoft Copilot and ChatGPT across the organisation to see how it improves our efficiency through leveraging this tool for repeat tasks and anything not bringing in value, allowing our employees to do more complex and impactful work. We also have AI governance and have implemented a lot of policies and guidance around how to use tools so it doesn’t prevent any of our security on the data that we are using. An example I can give is AI translation services, which can also help with reduced cost.”
Straumann Group also leverages AI to automate their social media manager marketing and content generation, but more pertinently, they do a lot of internal training to ensure everyone is properly involved with AI rather than just passing it by, to then help with delivering the best innovation for customers.
How Straumann Group makes the oral health and general health connection
With this being a theme of the webinar, putting this into practice, Dalmasso says, “We’ve partnered with the International Team of Implantology, called the ITI, to provide training and research opportunities for clinicians to raise awareness about the impact of oral health on overall health and wellbeing. We also do a lot of patient education [including through digital marketing] about the benefit of maintaining good oral health and the connection to general health.”
Oral health has been linked to hearing, heart disease, stroke, diabetes, cancers, and even Alzheimer’s.
And what about sustainability?
Straumann Group has focused on reducing its environmental footprint and has realised 98%-100% energy from renewable sources and aims to achieve net zero emissions by 2040.
Dalmasso says the Group also fosters social responsibility, through opportunities for learning and growth, setting a goal of 45% women in leadership positions, and committing to provide 35% of educational activities in low to middle income countries and to improve access to dental care. “We’ve talked about the impact of oral healthcare on general health, so if we cannot give access to low and middle income countries, then I don’t think we’re doing our job properly.”
Straumann Group’s role in the future of dentistry
Dalmasso says one of Straumann Group’s biggest focuses is digital transformation and investing heavily in digital technologies to enhance treatment planning and care. “This can start from what we already know, in terms of intra oral scanners, surgical planning systems and digital workflows, but really we want to own a large part of the workflow to make sure we can shape the future there.”
The Group will also continue to develop innovative products. “The core products from Straumann Group are implants and we are coming with new innovations every year. The new iEXCEL implant system, combined with iOS series, is definitely one of the big innovations that would help to improve clinical outcomes and patient experience.”
But with this, global expansion is also important. “We need to take all this innovation and broaden it for patient access, so we are expanding our presence into emerging markets like Latin America and Asia Pacific, in order to expand our reach but also develop patient care.”
We would welcome your thoughts on this story. Email your views to Hannah Millington or call 0207 183 3779.
