Comparison of initial dental treatment decisions between in-person and asynchronous teledentistry examinations for people with special health care needs.

Background: People with special health care needs in long-term care settings have difficulty accessing a traditional dental office. The goal of the authors was to assess initial treatment decision concordance between dentists conducting traditional in-person examinations using mobile equipment and additional dentists conducting examinations using asynchronous teledentistry technology.

Methods: Six dentists from Access Dental Care, a North Carolina mobile dentistry nonprofit, saw new patients on-site at 12 participating facilities or asynchronously off-site with electronic dental records, radiographs, and intraoral images, all captured by an on-site dental hygienist.