SomnoMed 2.0. It’s a concept the company has been actualizing since November 2018, when Neil Verdal-Austin, the newly appointed CEO of SomnoMed stepped into his role. Verdal-Austin launched a renewed mission for the company, one of being “treatment-focused and technology driven”, and our entire industry is starting to see it’s turning out to be more than just another catchphrase.
Each member of SomnoMed’s Executive team has adopted a personal approach to strengthening relationships with sleep dentists across the country, listening to their feedback, and maintaining open lines of communication. Additionally, a focus on “best in class” products and the promotion of oral appliance therapy for the treatment of obstructive sleep apnea remains the center of the company’s focus. Not just listening to customers – acting on what SomnoMed heard has decreased average case turnaround time to only 12 calendar days and shown a decrease in returns by 48%.
On the heels of this success, the company recently launched their latest product, the SomnoDent Avant. The SomnoDent Avant is SomnoMed’s smallest, strongest and first milled oral device with a soft liner for fit that is comfortable for patients. The company has partnered with key opinion leaders including Dr. David Schwartz, Dr. Kent Smith, Dr. Steve Carstensen and Dr. Tarun Agarwal to share their personal experiences in fitting patients with the SomnoDent Avant with audiences across the country. According to Dr. Smith, “the SomnoDent Avant is a game-changer!” The comfort of the device has been positively received by patients based on a study conducted by Professor Marc Braem at the Antwerp University Hospital wherein 100% of patients rated Avant as either comfortable or very comfortable.
The results of the study also showed that after 42 days, treatment with SomnoDent Avant resulted in a statistically significant decrease in AHI, with an even larger improvement in AHI-supine for back sleepers. The strap-based design acts like elastics, pulling the top and bottom jaw together and keeping the mouth closed while maintaining forward posture in all sleep positions.
The SomnoDent Avant can be ordered via SomnoMed’s online portal located at somaccount.com. The convenience of ordering online, utilizing iOS scans and CAD-CAM manufacturing, creates a completely digital workflow so dentists save chair time and enjoy shorter turn-around time from the manufacturer. “More and more dentists are starting to see [intraoral scanning] as viable – it’s efficient; it’s time saving; it’s accurate. And for us, it’s the future,” Verdal-Austin commented.
SomnoMed is forging new territory with this new digital, fully-milled, device with a soft liner, the first, but not the last. Doctors are sharing their thoughts, and SomnoMed is listening. Welcome to SomnoMed 2.0.