Forging a Dental Renaissance

Established in March 2017, Dentacoin is the first blockchain solution for the global dental industry. It is designed, fundamentally, as a way to improve dental care on a global scale. In May, Corporate Vision magazine named Dentacoin as the Best Blockchain Solution Provider in Dental in the 2018 Corporate Excellence Awards. On the back of the win, we spoke to Co-Founder and Core Developer, Jeremias Grenzebach to find out the secret to their success.

Designed foremost as a solution in the face of an overwhelming problem, Dentacoin is pitched as the answer to granting access to higher quality dental care around the world. To achieve this, they have designed a three-tiered process defined by mutual benefits for both the service provider and the patient. To go into more detail; Dentacoin can be earned through activities such as taking surveys, providing feedback and maintaining proper dental care. As such, more people can afford treatment. The completion of activities provides valuable insight for the dentists, who receive regular feedback and nurture a loyal patient community. Lastly, as the number of overall treatments increases, the number of treatments for preventable problems decreases, reducing wasted resources, and increasing overall service efficiency. It’s a novel approach, putting the responsibility of engagement firmly in the individual and making them an active part of the sector’s reinvention.

By all regards, Dentacoin are at the cutting edge of their industry. They have no direct competitors. But, naturally, as their growth accelerates, others will want to capitalise on this emerging market. We asked Jeremias how they plan to stay ahead of emerging trends and competitors following in their footsteps, “Important emerging trends can be recognised only when looking at the global industry. That’s why we are working closely with professionals with different competences worldwide. Also, we are highly engaged with the patient community. This combination helps us detect in advance trends with a chance for significant impact on the industry.”

Jeremias continues, building on what makes Dentacoin different from other services, “Blockchain-based technological solutions are highly relevant to the healthcare services market, therefore there are general Healthcare-centric Blockchain solutions, which are mainly focused on providing decentralised storage of patient records. Within the dental sector, currently, we do not have real direct competitors at a similar development and adoption level. The concept stands out with the innovative Blockchain application for the purpose of creating a global dental ecosystem where patients’ health has a central place. Our project success can be solely measured by its adoption, by its growing network of users. Within this newly-created framework, network effects are triggered meaning that each new participant increases the value of the greater network for all existing participants. This, and not speculations, is what gives real value to Dentacoin.

“Additionally, the first three tools developed by Dentacoin, that have already attracted more than 60,000 individuals and 4,000 dentists, are: DentaVox, Trusted Reviews and Dentacare.”

A large part of Dentacoin’s initial success comes from the internal culture of the firm; a culture defined by ambition, and forward thinking, “The main prerequisite for providing the best service possible is always this inner ambition which makes you eager to go forward, to learn new things, to improve your skills constantly. Our main goal from then on is to keep this ambition alive and stronger through many challenging projects and constant development support – this lays in the centre of our internal culture.”

Jeremias was eager to emphasise the extent of the problem that Dentacoin was created to rectify, “Dentacoin is a solution, designed to work on a global scale. Therefore, when speaking about industry overview, we should look at the market worldwide. We strongly believe that it should be a basic right for every person to have access to high quality dental care. The reality, however, shows that less than 20% of the global population can afford such. Moreover, USD 440 billion are spent annually on dental treatment; 90% thereof is wasted on preventable problems. The high level of fragmentation on the global dental market turns over dentists worldwide into lone fighters, unable to achieve efficiency and forced against their beliefs by the current system of tariffs, settlements and insurances.

The future of Dentacoin is one that seems set in stone, an immovable stalwart, paving the way for dental innovation in the years to come. From the outset, Dentacoin was designed to be for the long haul, with plans to improve on their existing toolkit, and develop new tools as and when their growth necessitates them. Furthermore, Dentacoin are actively planning expansions to their partner network, which will allow for mass real-world adoption, and are developing a means of buying, selling and storing Dentacoin. Perhaps more importantly, Dentacoin are driving the discussion on how cryptocurrency can be used to solve problems in other sectors, and inspiring discussions on the alternative uses of emerging technology in areas that would be unthought of just a couple of years ago. Currently, patients at 38 clinics in 14 countries can pay for their treatments in Dentacoin cryptocurrency. Dentists, on the other hand, can pay to laboratories and other service companies within the network too.

To finish, Jeremias spoke briefly on the immediate future of the firm, “The progress achieved so far makes us optimistic about the future. Nowadays, there is no doubt that digitisation is the way forward for each industry, including dentistry. On that note, we believe that developments such as Blockchain, AI, IoT will have a significant impact on dentistry in future as they will allow for higher efficiency, exceptional diagnostics and treatment quality and excellent customer service. Lastly, we have already developed concepts about possible integrations of those technological advances into our products.”

Contact: Jeremias Grenzebach, Co-Founder and Core Developer

Company: Dentacoin Foundation

Address: Wim Duisenbergplantsoen, 1 6221 SE Maastricht, The Netherlands

Web Address: www.dentacoin.com