AiThority Interview with Florian Hillen, CEO and Founder at VideaHealth

Hi, Florian. Welcome to our Interview Series. Please tell us a little bit about your journey and what inspired you to start at VideaHealth.

I was a medical student in Germany before continuing my education in the states at MIT and through Harvard research. At MIT, I became enthralled with technology with a specific focus on AI and how it could impact the future of healthcare. I researched a variety of applications in the medical field and worked with different companies in that space before taking an interest in mammography and then eventually dentistry when I saw the impact it could have since the industry touches nearly everyone from age 2-100.

In the dental industry, the margin of error is more significant. For example, dentists typically miss around 50% of decay, and periodontal or gum disease can be challenging to quantify. This can potentially cause serious issues that have significant implications for an individual’s health, such as the increased risk for diabetes, cardiovascular disease and early-onset dementia. When I started VideaHealth, we leaned into a tool with a data-based approach to help dentists recognize these issues easier and earlier.

With the rise of AI and machine learning capabilities, what is the future of medical care companies that offer specialized tech-supported services and solutions?

While AI is taking healthcare by storm, dental offices are at the forefront of operationalizing the technology. Early adopter dentists and Dental Service Organizations (DSOs) are leveraging AI to deliver a standardized level of care across providers and improve patient outcomes. With VideaHealth, dentists can use AI to employ a data-driven approach that streamlines workflows in the office while enhancing diagnostics. This reduces potential human error and bias and enables dentists to deliver the most accurate diagnoses possible.

AI-supported dental care provides better diagnostics, helps dentists detect and diagnose dental disease on X-rays with remarkable precision, and, as a result, provides superior clinical insights. These insights equip providers with compelling visuals that help them better explain findings and diagnosis with patents. All this leads to better treatment and increased case acceptance rates while improving trust between doctors and their patients.

Furthermore, the benefits of AI extend to office managers, clinical assistants and other team members. AI can automate routine tasks, such as transcribing dentists’ notes and charting, allowing the dental care team to focus its time on more meaningful work.

Recommended: AiThority Interview with Arijit Sengupta, CEO and Founder at Aible

What is the AI engine driving VideaHealth’s dental image feature? Could you please explain the research that has gone into this tech?

Our AI is built upon the VideaFactory and leverages the industry’s most diverse group of datasets sourced from millions of data points from multiple outlet sources, including DSOs, insurance companies, healthcare facilities and universities, allowing our AI to remain unbiased and accurate. These 100 million data sets are unique because they represent 50 times more X-rays than a dentist will see and investigate in their lifetime. We vetted thousands of dentists and selected only those among the top 20% to annotate X-rays used to train our AI. This enables our AI to learn from the best “teachers” and it continues to improve as it receives more high-quality data and user feedback.

What are your other core offerings? What is your vision for the company and the industry in general?

Our main product is called VideaAI and includes potential caries findings and radiographic bone level findings. Our FDA-cleared caries findings AI leverages medical algorithms to identify areas of interest on dental X-ray images. The AI analysis helps enable more accurate diagnoses and better preventative care. Statistically, VideaAI’s caries findings reduce false positives by 15% and improve diagnostic accuracy for 100% of dentists using the tool, regardless of their years in practice. It also supports organic practice growth by increasing the treatment plan value by an average of 26% and is effectively helping DSOs scale businesses with better efficiencies and faster reimbursements.

Our radiographic bone level findings tool provides insight into highly specific, quantitative bone-level measurements on intraoral radiographs. This tool annotates X-rays and color codes to denote bone level measurements. VideaAI lets dental clinicians quickly and accurately supplement and support their periodontal probing findings, thereby aiding in the early identification of risk factors for systemic diseases.

My vision for VideaHealth is to positively impact the oral health of a billion people globally. Our mission at VideaHealth is to help thousands of dental clinicians provide better care to millions of patients through the use of AI. This is essential for integrating medical and dental healthcare because it dramatically enhances a health professional’s ability to identify systemic diseases like gum disease, hypertension, and diabetes. In the United States, breaking down the care gaps between the mouth and the rest of the body is an urgent health issue. AI has a big role to play in the early identification and intervention of oral diseases, which can transform whole-body health, providing more comprehensive oral and traditional medical care.

Recommended: AiThority Interview with Elliott Jobe, Chief Innovation Officer and Co-Founder at Infinite Reality

Any other integration in the AI-based image detection market that you are particularly proud to talk about:

We recently entered a joint venture with Henry Schein One to introduce the Dentrix Detect AI-powered platform. This integration brings VideaHealth’s computer-assisted detection directly into the Dentrix practice management software, the most widely-used practice management software in the United States.

Using AI-enabled X-ray analysis to provide real-time clinical decision support to dentists, Dentrix Detect works within dentists’ existing workflows, eliminating the need for dentists to import or export images to utilize the AI analysis function.

The platform automatically analyzes every image to help dentists evaluate radiographs and other images, promoting greater transparency for patients.

What’s missing from the image recognition space that you would like to plug in the next 2 years?

The number one missing link regarding image recognition in the dental space is the connection between the images, AI detections and the clinical data in the practice management software (PMS) data. This is where the real value is. This connects all the dots and helps tell the full story – tracking the entire patient journey. VideaHealth’s mission is to move from “AI” to measurable and actionable AI – this accomplishes this mission.

This link enables easier tracking of disease progression, earlier diagnoses, increased treatment value, increased case acceptance and ensures production opportunities are tracked, monitored and made actionable It also fosters a path for data-driven industry benchmarks, clinician calibration, consistency and accountability, mentorship opportunities and additional workflow efficiencies.

This is why we are partnering with practice management software companies, including the largest in the world, Henry Schein One. The wealth of imaging and practice management data in PMS systems like Dentrix, Dentrix Ascend and others enables us to continuously improve our detection algorithms and build the best products for our customers. With a diverse data set foundation, our algorithms are highly accurate and can be applied to different patient populations. And since our AI is designed to be actionable, it is easier for clinicians to use, saving them time when working with patients.

Please tell us about the major milestones you managed to achieve in 2022.

Last year was certainly an exciting one for VideaHealth. A few of the standout milestones include:

• Receiving FDA clearance for Videa Caries Assist and securing our Series A round
• Growing our team, including the addition of dental technology veteran Tennli Nelson as our vice president of business development
• Securing inclusion on the elite CB Insights Digital Health 150
• Cementing a significant partnership with Henry Schein One, which integrates VideaHealth’s FDA-cleared computer-assisted detection (CADe) with Dentrix® Practice Management Software.

Recommended: AiThority Interview with James Rubin, Product Manager at Google

What AI initiatives are you currently focusing on and why?

We’re focused on giving dental clinicians the best tools to help them detect and treat oral diseases. VideaHealth aims to enhance the ability of dental clinicians to identify and treat oral diseases earlier on. This is critical since there is a major connection between oral health and overall health. By doing this, we can make a significant, measurable impact on some of society’s most pressing health issues, such as heart disease, diabetes and early-onset dementia. Together, dental clinicians and VideaHealth are setting a new standard of care for millions of patients. At the end of the day, dentists are always in the driver’s seat. This assistive technology is a powerful ally for the profession that enhances patent communication and improves case acceptance rates to help ensure better patient outcomes.

We’re committed to pioneering a shift in oral and medical healthcare toward disease prevention and creating a more effective way to provide holistic patient care.

Thank you, Florian! That was fun and we hope to see you back on AiThority.com soon.

[To share your insights with us, please write to sghosh@martechseries.com]