OARC’s Research Data and Web Platforms group has engaged in a collaboration with UCLA Professor Vivek Shetty on his NIH-funded Oral Health Recommender System (oHRS) project.
The group is developing the controller, database, and endpoints for the oHRS system, as well as the system’s end-to-end testing protocols. These features are critical to the oHRS tool, which utilizes generative artificial intelligence and a mobile application to provide personalized guidance for maintaining oral health between dental visits. The goal of the project is to facilitate the delivery of personalized, just-in-time behavioral nudges to encourage oral self-care.
The system utilizes an electric toothbrush equipped with sensors to collect patient data on dental hygiene practices. The data are integrated into the smartphone application, which then uses artificial intelligence to provide tailored behavioral change interventions to reinforce proper oral self-care practices. This technology can prevent the development and progression of dental disease due to improper and inadequate oral self-care behaviors.
The project is currently in a Micro Randomized Trial (MRT) with 98 participants. The trial involves onboarding participants weekly, observing how both the participants and the system perform, and looking for areas for improved accuracy and performance. The Research Data and Web Platforms group and the project partners will then analyze the data from the MRT to identify, and then implement, improvements, paving the way for Randomized Clinical Trials and enabling the system to scale reliably to many more users.
