MEDIA Leads Japan's Dental DX Revolution

By Daniel de Bomford and Cian O’Neill

Our mouths can tell stories about us without saying anything. Just by looking at the condition in the oral cavity, we can make inferences about our lifestyle habits and health status, and more importantly, we can gain insights, beyond dentistry, into the health of our entire body.

These insights come not through words, but through subtle clues that can be understood only by a trained eye. However, when explaining complex and sensitive content such as medical information, it is necessary to communicate effectively with patients and provide easy-to-understand explanations to guide them in making decisions.

MEDIA's imaging system symbolizes the company's product development philosophy, which emphasizes the relationship between dentistry and the whole body. The company has been developing and providing "Visual-MAX," a user-friendly product based on the Pen display to significantly improve communication between dentists and patients, allowing patients to gain a deeper understanding of their treatment.

Patients want clear, easy-to-understand explanations from professionals about their oral health condition. MEDIA Chairman Hironobu Tsuji believes that "in the future, medical care will move from an era in which it is handled by doctors and other specialists to an era in which patients themselves will receive advice from specialists and live their lives with a health-conscious mindset," and he says that, among all types of medical information, image information has immeasurable value.

In addition, the company has developed a system based on AI technology to secondarily use panoramic X-rays taken during dental consultations to help dentists detect patients with osteoporosis early. The AI-based tool checks panoramic X-ray images to screen for jawbone fragility and can help dentists detect early osteoporosis and refer patients to medical care.

AI tool to support dentists for osteoporosis screening

"This software was approved by the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare as the first medical device in the field of dentistry in Japan which diagnoses the fragility of jawbones using AI. This will be a groundbreaking step toward the start of healthcare collaboration through information sharing between dentistry and medicine," says Tsuji.

Osteoporosis is a silent disease that goes undetected until a fracture occurs. This disease is particularly common in women and can cause fractures in the elderly, leading to bedriddenness. Tsuji says, "This technology can detect potential diseases early and prevent fractures, thus contributing to many people maintaining longer, healthier lives."

Since its inception, MEDIA has focused on developing and popularizing electronic health record (EHR) systems specifically for dentistry. Tsuji envisions EHR systems as a vast network connecting all medical institutions. In this system, daily clinical records from these institutions would be compiled into a national database, managing patient medical information longitudinally and making it accessible for future treatments. "The EHR network should be established as a fundamental national medical infrastructure," he states. "Within this networked society, dentistry must provide valuable new insights to medical doctors and other healthcare and nursing facilities for the benefit of patients."

While Japan has been said to be tardy in digitalization, particularly lagging behind other developed countries, its medical administration has been rapidly building a medical information network in these several years. In the future, the major business theme will be to pave the way to digital transformation across the entire healthcare industry, transcending the boundaries between dentistry and medicine, so as to eliminate the interdisciplinary barriers and promote information exchange via the medical information network. Tsuji said, "I believe that by 2032, when the company will celebrate its 50th anniversary, digital transformation in Japan's healthcare will become widespread and bring about major changes to Japan's healthcare system. The changes brought about by the results of ICT and AI will create a new era for Japan's healthcare system."

To hear more from President Hironobu Tsuji of MEDIA, check out this interview with him.