Beside reactive monitoring, now you can proactively monitor your patients by activating milestones or goals that you would like to achieve, either during or by the end of their treatment. For example, when treating Class II patients with deep bite, you might want to monitor treatment milestones such as achieving Class I canine and normal overbite, thus breaking down the overall treatment goals into smaller milestones. Once you activate a goal our AI will analyze your patients’ scans for that specific goal and will notify you once your goal is achieved.

Goals are splitted into four categories: anteroposterior, transverse, vertical and general. Some goals are also splitted for each side or arch to allow you to schedule the correct actions for each case.

1. Once you have created a patient, goal setting is available from the left panel of the patient card. Select a goal you plan to track and click on the play button.

2. Then, specify a timeframe in which you expect to achieve this goal.

Up until the beginning of this timeframe, which is called the “notification delay period”, no notifications will be sent, whether your goal is achieved or not. You can leverage this notification delay period to optimize appointment scheduling. Do you want to schedule an appointment as soon as your goal is achieved? Set the notification delay period to 1 week and you will be notified as soon as your goal is achieved. Do you want to delay scheduling an appointment until a specific date? Set the notification delay period accordingly and your patient and team notifications will be delayed until this date.

3. Then specify the end of this timeframe, called the deadline, by when you are expecting to achieve your goal. Do you want to intervene if your goal is not achieved by a specific date? Set your deadline and you will be notified through the DM dashboard if your goal is not achieved by this deadline. Active goals can trigger team and patient instructions between the notification delay period and the deadline and can alert you if the goal has not been achieved by the deadline. Please note that setting goals, their timeframe, and their corresponding team and patient instructions, will not impact your protocols and their instructions.

Once a goal has been activated, the patient card will display how much time is remaining before the deadline is reached or by how long the goal is overdue. Goals are also color coded for a quick and easy overview.

Blue dot = Goal is not yet achieved but still within timeframe

Green dot = Goal was achieved. Please note that green dot will be displayed if the goal is achieved regardless of the set timeline

Red dot = Set deadline is over AND goal was not achieved by the end of the deadline

Gray dot = Goal is not activated

When a goal is achieved BEFORE the notification delay period, you will be informed under the published scan and under the Goal window beneath the Monitoring information, but no alert is sent via the Notifications tab to be “marked as reviewed”. The alert via the Notifications tab will ONLY be sent after the “notification delay period” (on the next scan after the notification delay period).

You will receive a notification at the deadline to inform you that a goal is overdue. The goal will continue to be tracked and you will be notified when it is achieved.

If you wish to stop an active goal, you can do it by clicking on the stop button in the left panel of the patient card. You can leverage this tool if your treatment goals have changed.

You can also modify the notification delay period or deadline of any active goal if the treatment is delayed, for example due to lost aligners, lack of compliance, or slower than expected biological response.

After a goal is achieved it can be restarted, which can be handy with brackets and wires patients, when you want to set archwire passivity as a goal to track from appointment to appointment.

Patient messages are turned off by default, but you can activate them to be triggered when goals are achieved, by the time of setting your goals. Patient messages will not be sent, if your goals are not achieved by the deadline. Default team instructions will be sent when goals are not achieved by your deadline while team instructions can be personalized for achieved goals. Both patient messages and team instructions can be adjusted from your message library, the same way as for your protocols.

The goals you will want to monitor will be specific for each patient and will be depending on your diagnosis and your treatment plan. Beside setting overall treatment goals, they can be broken down into smaller milestones, for example correcting a Class II and deep-bite, might be broken down into multiple milestones, such as achieving Class I molar and canine relationship and establishing normal overjet, and overbite. With clear aligners and their digital treatment plans, milestones and goals are clearly established at the beginning of the treatment and their timing is also defined at each aligner stage. If available, these goals can be easily activated in your DM goals while their timing can be also calculated based on the prescribed aligner wear time and the aligner stage a specific milestone is planned to be achieved.

When monitoring “Class I molar” or “Class I canine” relationships, goals achieved notifications will be triggered regardless of the presence of any other malocclusion once these goals are reached.

For example, “Class I canine” relationship will be marked as achieved even if there is an anterior open bite present. Should you wish to monitor anterior open bite together with “Class I canine”? Activate the “Class I canine” goal in the Antero-Posterior section and the “Normal overbite” in the Vertical section.