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| feature interview “ Dentistry has finally arrived in the digital age” An interview with Patrick Thurm, Vice President Technology, Global Prosthetic Solutions, Henry Schein By DTI Patrick Thurm is Vice President Technology, Global Prosthetic Solutions, Henry Schein. (Courtesy of Henry Schein, Germany) 10 CAD/CAM 4 2017 Since its introduction in 2013, the ConnectDental platform from Henry Schein has helped numerous dental professionals make the difficult leap into dig- ital dentistry. This autumn Dental Tribune Interna- tional interviewed Vice President of Technology Pat- rick Thurm to find out how dentistry has changed in the digital age and why Henry Schein ConnectDental provides guidance in an ever-growing market. has also finally arrived in dentistry. In this field, we are now offering complete solutions with implant plan- ning software that allow practices and laboratories to produce surgical guides together, which means that they no longer have to rely on external providers. This way, they can provide a service that is much closer to the patient. There are actually implantologists work- ing with surgical guides for every implant they place. Four years ago, we met here at the EAO congress to discuss the introduction of the ConnectDental platform. How has the dental landscape changed since then, in your opinion? In the last four years, we have seen increasing pen- etration of digital technology, in both dental labora- tories and practices. These technologies are now used across the whole field of dentistry, not only by implan- tologists and increasingly orthodontists but also by general practitioners. Of course, their integration is being realised at different paces, but we are seeing in- creasing networking with open systems gaining more and more market share. This is having a positive im- pact on penetration, which is exactly what we pre- dicted four years ago. We no longer speak of technologies, but of integra- tion and solutions. The International Dental Show this year clearly showed that dentistry has finally arrived in the digital age, and all large providers of materials and technologies have adjusted their portfolio to be able to contribute to this growing field. With the ever-growing number of solutions, en- tering the field can be overwhelming. How does ConnectDental provide orientation? For us, this is the main role of Henry Schein Con- nectDental. The platform helps to preselect, choose and connect products to support dentists in their ef- forts to offer new treatment concepts and achieve higher patient satisfaction. Meanwhile, 3-D printing Digital dentistry offers amazing possibilities and the ConnectDental platform makes best use of them, either as a chairside solution in combination with Dentsply Sirona CEREC or as a solution using an in- traoral scanner and the services of a laboratory, for which we work closely with 3Shape and other leading manufacturers of digital impression solutions. That is also the reason we no longer call it an open system but ConnectDental Trusted Solutions, which means that the solutions we offer are thoroughly tried and tested. Where do you see the future of ConnectDental? As trusted advisers, we are committed to helping dental professionals to successfully integrate digital technology into every step of their clinical workflows. Therefore, we will continuously extend the Connect- Dental platform further. On the technology side, we always try to have the best solutions in our portfolio. Since we are a global company, we are certainly posi- tioned very well in this field and are able to include any new trend in our system through partnerships with every important provider. Within Henry Schein, we work closely with our affiliates CAMLOG and Biohori- zons in implantology, and other divisions of the com- pany, such as Henry Schein Orthodontics. We also col- laborate with leading clinicians, clinics, laboratories and universities to develop excellent solutions. Education too is a major focus and we invest a great deal of resources in this area. So there is plenty more to come._