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1.
Dental informatics is the application of computer and information science to improve dental practice,
research, education and management. During the last forty years it has developed into a research
discipline of significant scale and scope. Dental informatics can be considered a specialty of medical
informatics.
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The Dental Informatics Online Community (DIOC) is a National Library of Medicine funded project to
create an open, worldwide research community for people interested in dental informatics.
Begun in 2006, the DIOC is an evolving resource that strives to meet the ever
changing needs of anyone interested in dental informatics.
The DIOC provides researchers, educators, bioinformaticians, clinicians, students,
industry, and the library and information science community with the information and
tools they need to advance the discipline of dental informatics.
The DIOC includes literature to enhance research and practice, a supportive
community to seek feedback and collaboration, and announcements of meetings and
conferences.
Get involved! Sign up to become a member of the DIOC today! You can keep
up to date with the latest dental informatics research, educational and collaboration
opportunities. The DIOC is here to serve you. Its free! Members are not restricted to
a specific discipline, association membership, nationality or qualification, and
membership is free. Register here.
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The success of dental informatics requires the expertise of a broad range of professionals. People that
have contributed to the advancement of dental informatics come from a wide variety of fields including
research, education, bioinformatics, computer science, library and information sciences, and dentistry.
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No. Because the discipline of dental informatics requires the expertise of a broad range of professionals no
specific degree is required to get involved.
People that have entered the dental informatics field come from a wide variety of
backgrounds including research, education, bioinformatics, computer science, library
and information sciences, and dentistry.
Find more information on postgraduate dental informatics programs at
the Columbia University College of Dental Medicine Website and the University of
Pittsburgh School of Dental Medicine Website.
Find more information on short-term internships in dental informatics on the
University of Pittsburgh School of Dental Medicine Website.
For continuing dental education courses in your area check with your state's dental
association and dental school. In addition, continuing dental education programs
across the United States provide a variety of courses focusing on dental informatics.
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Individuals with expertise in dental informatics work for academia, dental schools, the government,
industry, insurance companies, professional organizations, and more.
Examples of the work of dental informaticians include:
o Developing standardized vocabularies to facilitate translation of research to practice
o Working with computer software and hardware development companies
Creating a new method of data input to improve the efficiency of chairside computing
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You have made a great start! The DIOC and its Learning Center provide a
wide variety of resources on dental informatics. If you are looking for
something in particular and you can't find it let us know via the contact
form at the end of this page.
Read
Articles on dental informatics appear frequently in a variety of journals, including,
the Journal of the American Dental Association, the Journal of Dental
Education, Quintessence International, and the Journal of Computerized Dentistry.
For more general information on medical informatics search the following
websites: The Journal of American Medical Informatics Association, MD
Computing, The Journal of the American Medical Association and the British Medical
Journal.
For more articles on dental informatics visit the University of Pittsburgh School
of Dental Medicine's reprint service.
For continuing dental education courses in your area check with your state's
dental association and dental school. In addition, continuing dental education
programs across the United States provide a variety of courses focusing on dental
informatics.
Short-term internships in dental informatics are offered at the University of
Pittsburgh School of Dental Medicine.
Postgraduate dental informatics programs are offered at the Columbia
University College of Dental Medicine and theUniversity of Pittsburgh School of
Dental Medicine.
Join
A variety of professional organizations have developed dental informatics programs:
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Every year the American Dental Association (ADA) dedicates one day of its annual conference to
the latest technologies for dentists. The ADA administers a Standards Committee for Dental
Informatics which creates standards for tomorrow's information technology applications.
The American Dental Education Association (ADEA) hosts an annual session dedicated to
informatics.
The American Medical Informatics Association (AMIA) holds an annual symposium in Washington,
DC that includes presentation on dental informatics. In addition, the AMIA coordinates a Working
Group dedicated to dental informatics.
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Because dentistry is an information intensive science most every aspect benefits from the application of
computer and information sciences. In dental informatics the methodology of computer and information
sciences is used to address persistent problems in dental practice, research, education and management.
The research agenda of dental informatics is continually evolving. Click here for more
information on the current research agenda for dental informatics.
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The following list includes a few of the research areas being addressed:
Dental Practice
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Universally accessible electronic patient oral health records and medical history
Effective and efficient user input and output devices more suitable for chairside computing
Teledentistry
Dental Research
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Dental Education
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Educational software
Multimedia laboratories that includes virtual reality simulators for preclinical training
Dental Management
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Integrated information systems that automate routine tasks and reduce administrative overhead
Administration systems for dental schools to assess quality assurance and streamline
accreditation
Dental informatics has the potential to transform how dentists care for their patients. Many obstacles
faced by practicing dentists can be addressed through dental informatics. A few areas of current research
include:
o Maximizing workflow support
o Supporting clinical decision making and evidence based dentistry
11. As a practicing dentist, how do I start integrating information technology into my practice?
News
If you would like to submit a news story for publication on the DIOC website, please contact Heiko
Spallek. Please note that submitted news will be reviewed for relevance.
September 2014
Research opportunity
A software program that, among other things, mathematically models periodontal disease has been developed and
requires more stringent examination than the past year of successful in-house testing. The software developer
seeks a periodontal and/or dental informatics graduate student looking for a certificate program research topic. The
developer will provide advice, fully-committed mentoring, plus a $5000 research award. Student is expected to
work with an academic institution and produce work that is worthy of being published in a peer-reviewed journal.
Opportunity is designed to be a win-win for all concerned. Inquiries as to details of the project (see DIOC listing
Dental Integra under projects) may be directed to: DrS@thedentalintegra.com.
August 2013
Dental Informatics Seminar
The seminar "Development and Evaluation of Oral-Systemic Patient Education Modules" held on July 24, 2013 was
organized by the Dental Informatics Research and Training Program at the Marshfield Clinic Research Foundation.
The presentation by Nicolette (Nikki) Klucas is available for viewing at your convenience on Marshfield Clinics
Mediasite.
March 2012
New Book: Integration of Medical and Dental Care and Patient Data. valerie j h powell rt(r) phd (17
),franklin din (18
), amit acharya (34
) and Miguel Humberto Torres-Urquidy (11
) (Eds.) seek to
optimize the delivery of healthcare by stating why isolated components of healthcare delivery need to work
together, by asserting how health information technology (HIT) can help these components collaborate to improve
care quality and patient safety, by documenting how existing barriers stand in way of interdisciplinary collaborative
practice supported by HIT, and by recommending how to remove such barriers. Link to book.
Article on Social Media in Dental Education: Social media are part of the fabric of today's world, from which
health care is not excluded. Based on its distribution capacity, a single individual can cause an amount of damage
to an institution that only a few decades ago required access to a mainstream news media outlet. A need for
regulation with regard to the use of social media seemed to have caught the eye of the medical profession, but did
not seem to penetrate the dental community with the same level of attention. Drs. Spallek and Oakley realized that
their institutions or professions could potentially be cast in a negative light by social media postings. Read more.