2025-08-18 カナダ・ブリティッシュコロンビア大学(UBC)
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UBC dentistry students capture images of Mrs. Wun’s teeth during a checkup at Villa Cathay Care Home in Vancouver. Credit: Erik Rolfsen / UBC Media Relations
The COVID-19 pandemic highlighted how hard it can be to provide dental care to frail seniors in long-term care. But even when there’s no such crisis, access is a persistent issue. Now, a team from UBC is using teledentistry to close that gap—one securely uploaded photo at a time.
Dr. Chris Wyatt, director of the UBC Geriatric Dentistry Program, and his team are developing and testing a mobile app to streamline care for patients and provide hands-on training for dentistry students. We spoke with him about the project.
What is the ToothPortal app?
ToothPortal is a secure app that lets caregivers upload oral health concerns—along with photos, medical history and personal information—directly to our UBC servers. Patients, nurses in long-term care settings, dentists and physicians can upload information to us at the UBC Geriatric Dentistry Program. The app guides them through a series of questions: What is the problem? How urgent is it? It includes uploading medical and dental history, personal details like name and contact information, and images of the patient’s mouth, all in a secure digital environment. From there, it’s sent to our dental team for triage, so we can determine the urgency and schedule appointments.
