Swedish dental healthcare is facing several challenges that are shared with the rest of the western world regarding how to develop effective dental healthcare in a digitized society. For society, the challenges concern a growing population at the same time as growing staff shortages. It is not possible to address the shortage of dentists and dental nurses by traiing more and it is therefore necessary to find other solutions. In addition, there is an ongoing digitization of dental healthcare and increased demands are being made for developing new innovative solutions, as well as those made on existing structures and systems. The focus is on creating effective dental healthcare in combination with an agile and innovative way of meeting the challenges of the future. The use of Artificial intelligence (AI) in dental healthcare brings the hope of increased quality and effectiveness as well as increased growth and better welfare. This project is about an on-going applied study in dental healthcare. The study context embraces a newly built public dental clinic in the city centre of Umea, Sweden that opened for patients in September 2018.
The clinic’s vision is to become the world’s smartest dental clinic, using smart digital tools and developing smart working methods. Furthermore, the clinic aims to be a fully functioned test bed within two years. The clinic is fully digitized with the latest equipment it is possible to obtain for dental healthcare. The staff recruited have a specific responsibility to be part of the exploration and share their experiences of how to develop dental healthcare for the future. Another focus concerns how to conduct more effective dental healthcare for the patients. One of the on-going projects is an AI-based communication-solution under development called A.I.D.A. – the digital receptionist (e.g. Artificial Intelligent Dental Assistant).
Aim and method: The study aims to investigate how an AI-system can optimize the communication between patient and staff as well as the communication between the staff within the clinic. The research questions focus on patients’ and staffs’ experiences and their use of the developed AI-system concerning opportunities as well as challenges. Design-based research methods will be used as a means to develop an approach to meet the challenges of staff shortages based on the use of AI. Three types of data will be collected based on staff interviews, patient interviews and log data from the AI system. The theoretical framework is based on activity theory, where motives, goals, actions and operations are key starting points. Activity theory embraces an exploration and an understanding of a context in relation to how social relations and materials, tools and intentions affect acting in different situations.
Thematic analysis will be used to construct an understanding and sense of the collected empirical material and to identify key themes and emerging patterns based on the study’s aim and research questions.