How A.I. Is Helping Stop the Dental Burnout Epidemic, Presented by: Kristie Kapp, RDH

Approved for 0.5 CEU, AADOM is an AGD PACE Approved Provider (can be used towards AADOM Designations)

Dental burnout is rarely about running out of physical energy — it's about running out of mental energy, drained by administrative demands that keep rising in every practice and every country. In this keynote, Kristie Kapp, RDH — who grew up in dentistry and has spent more than twenty years seeing it from the chair, the owner's seat, and the consulting side — cuts through the AI hype to show how technology, adopted intentionally, can give caregivers their time and energy back. 

Grounded in real data (including why roughly 95% of AI projects fail to deliver, and where AI is already saving dental teams days of work per year), Kristie separates true AI from simple automation, tours the tools quietly transforming diagnostics, documentation, and patient communication, and introduces a practical five-criteria scorecard for evaluating any technology before you invest time, money, and team energy. The throughline is leadership: technology should serve the practice, not drive it, and it takes present, engaged leaders — not “pigeon leaders” who drop new tools and disappear — to make adoption stick. Attendees leave with a clear, leadership-driven framework for adopting AI in a way that restores joy, protects the team, and strengthens the business — patients first, staff second, business third. 

Course Learning Objectives:

Upon completion of this course, participants will be able to:

• Identify the primary drivers of dental team burnout, distinguishing administrative and cognitive overload from physical fatigue.
• Differentiate true AI (machine learning and computer vision) from automation, and explain why automation removes tasks while AI supports decisions.
• Recognize where AI is already delivering measurable value in dentistry — diagnostic  imaging, documentation, patient communication, and administrative workflows — and interpret the time and consistency gains realistically. 
• Apply a five-criteria scorecard (relative advantage, compatibility, simplicity, trialability, and observability) to evaluate any technology before adopting it.
• Explain why most technology adoption fails for implementation reasons rather than the technology itself, and describe the leadership behaviors that make adoption succeed. 
• Develop an intentional adoption plan — evaluate, pilot, implement, and measure — that paces change and protects the team's cognitive load.