Diane Larson is a hygienist and Clinical Specialist at OralDNA Labs. She is going to share the benefits of providing PCR testing with Salivary Diagnostics in everyday dentistry as well as the range of affordable tests available including tests from OralDNA Labs. Let’s take the guess-work out of treatment planning. Important information for all clinicians!
Video transcription:
Liz Lundry, RDH - “Hello. Welcome to the StellaLife Innovator Series. Today we're going to be featuring Diane Larson. Diana is a dental hygienist and a clinical specialist at Oral DNA Labs and she's going to share with us the variety of tests that they now offer including a test for COVID-19. And when you are able to use salivary diagnostics as part of your treatment planning, you will absolutely be able to get better clinical outcomes. So she's going to share all that with us today. Let's welcome Diane Larson.”
Diane Larson, RDH, BSDH - “Hello. Thank you Liz and thank you StellaLife for the opportunity to share why I do what I do and why it's important. I want to say hi to the Facebook attendees, most of which I'm sure are StellaLife providers and I do know that some are probably part of the Oral DNA family as well, too. So, hello hello hello. I'm going to introduce myself. My name is Diane Larson. I am a dental hygienist and clinical specialist with Oral DNA Labs. I graduated from dental hygiene school in 2000. It's hard to believe that it's been 20 years, but it's been a great profession and I'm looking forward to where it will take me in the next 20 years, maybe. So when I graduated in 2000, that was really, kind of the beginning of our modern day periodontology. There had been decades and decades and decades of research. Sir Kransky, Rants, Jorgen Slots, all kind of really indicating and pointing the finger to certain periodontal pathogens. Also, at that time, we were really just kind of hitting the peak on that oral systemic connection. We had known about periodontal disease and diabetes, but really they were starting to connect the dots between periodontal disease and pregnancy outcomes, and periodontal disease and cardiovascular disease. And look at where we are today with Alzheimer's and rheumatoid conditions, etc.. So after I graduated, fast forward a couple of years and Oral DNA is on the scene and when I first started using Oral DNA practice, it really complimented what I was trying to achieve. I was very frustrated. Some patients would respond great. Some patients wouldn't respond at all to my therapy. So I really wanted to be more evidence-based, I wanted to understand the full cause of their periodontal disease. When I started using Oral DNA, specifically the My Perio Path in practice, it really allowed me to understand the cause and provide that personalized therapy. Understanding if there was more of a high risk pathogen where I needed to be maybe more aggressive with my therapy really allowed me to provide that personalized care. It wasn't just a one size fits all approach anymore. From a simple, I want you to understand how simple it is to collect. It's well within the wheelhouse of any dental professional. So from a simple oral rinse, patient is going to swish and gargle for 30 seconds with sterile saline. That captures all of the bacterial DNA when we're doing the My Perio Path so that you can have that concrete evidence to base your therapy, let that patient heal, and then retest them. If you haven't had a chance to view a sample report on the My Perio Path, I challenge you to go to our webpage, oraldna.com, and just see the great detail in that actual report and what you're going to be able to provide for your patient periodontally. Now, page two of the My Period Path really hits home on that oral systemic connection. So what I truly believe that we are no longer dental professionals, but we are oral health care professionals. And I know a lot of you in practice today, patients are coming in and they are saying, "hey, I read this in an article in a magazine, or I heard on the news last night that the health of my mouth can impact my cardiovascular health". So that page two is definitely just going to help complement what you're trying to do today in practice. Now, outside of periodontal pathogens, we also have other tests. We have a couple of genetic tests that may give you answers for those periodontal patients. We also have HPV detection for oral cancer risk assessment. Caries, OraRisk caries, a test that actually looks for caries bacteria. So really, oral DNA can help you meet the three pillars, what I call the three pillars of dentistry. We've got periodontal disease, we've got caries, and we've got oral cancer. So in addition to some other tests that we have like candida, herpes simplex virus, we really can allow you to provide that higher quality of care for your patients. Now fast forward to today. With everything that's going on with the pandemic, it really hit home in March and really changed what we as dental professionals do. But as a clinical app, we really sat down and said, "hey, how can we be part of the solution?" And guess what? We have done it and we have been testing patients and getting patients out of pain, getting them into the surgeries that they needed, getting clinicians back to work by utilizing our OraRisk Covid-19 real time PCR. And that, again, is a simple swoosh and gargle with an oral rinse. So Liz gave me an assignment to answer the question why I do what I do and why it's important. Well, it is real simple for me to answer that question. It is for the patients and it is always for the patients. I challenge you listening to this video to go to our webpage oraldna.com, see all the sample reports, maybe follow the weekly blog that we have and check out our case studies. It's a great resource, and I hope that we will talk to you in the future. Take care. Bye bye.”
Liz Lundry, RDH - “Thank you, Diane. As a longtime clinical hygienist and a consultant with the JP Institute, I absolutely recommend the use of salivary diagnostics for all clinicians who are treating periodontal disease, doctors who are placing implants, it really gives you all the information you need to know to have the best clinical outcomes. And as we're treating periodontal disease, it lets us know if we have treated that patient to completion and they absolutely stay in remission longer when we have this information and treat appropriately. So this is amazing technology, this science is affordable and has a place in everyday dentistry so the great people at Oral DNA Labs can totally help you in your implementation. So please check it out and be safe and stay well, until next time. Thank you so much.”