From Information Technology to Informatics: The Information Revolution in Dental Education

Abstract

The capabilities of information technology (IT) have advanced precipitously in the last ifty years. Many of these advances have enabled new and beneicial applications of IT in dental education. However, conceptually, IT use in dental schools is only in its infancy. Challenges and opportunities abound for improving how we support clinical care, education, and research with IT. In clinical care, we need to move electronic dental records beyond replicating paper, connect information on oral health to that on systemic health, facilitate collaborative care through teledentistry, and help clinicians apply evidence-based dentistry and preventive management strategies. With respect to education, we should adopt an evidence-based approach to IT use for teaching and learning, share effective educational content and methods, leverage technology-mediated changes in the balance of power between faculty and students, improve technology support for clinical teaching, and build an information infrastructure centered on learners and organizations. In research, opportunities include reusing clinical care data for research studies, helping advance computational methods for research, applying generalizable research tools in dentistry, and reusing research data and scientiic worklows. In the process, we transition from a focus on IT-the mere technical aspects of applying computer technology-to one on informatics: the what, how, and why of managing information.Dr. Schleyer is Associate Professor and

Case Report Form for oral health assessments: methodological considerations

“…However, the advantages of this system may not be fully acknowledged by general practitioners, and further motivation of practitioners to use Information and communication technologies may be necessary. In the long term, the inclusion of electronic data registration in university training is probably the best strategy to address this need, 27 as recently graduated dentists are more and more familiar with information and communication technologies.…”

Uso da tecnologia educacional web-based por profissionais da Odontologia brasileira

“…Texts constitute a widely used resource, whether online or in traditional book format 1 . However, one study found that 75% of the university students researched preferred printed texts over e-textbooks 9 . The findings demonstrate the importance of videos for the purpose of learning, but there are divergences with regard to its constant use in an isolated fashion.…”

“…The majority of oral health professionals (76.48%) access the Internet on a daily basis. These technological media are often used as educational methods, especially in the field of dentistry 3,5,8,9 .…”

The Chief Clinical Informatics Officer (CCIO)

“…Significant progress has been made defining the educational requirements for Clinical Informaticians in Medicine [11][12][13], Nursing [14][15][16], Pharmacy [17][18][19], and Dentistry [20,21]. However, to date, the required education and skills for the Chief Clinical Informatics Officers have not been well delineated, thus complicating the professional development of those aspiring to these types of roles and the hiring processes for those seeking qualified informatics leaders.…”

“…Dentistry has a shorter record of accomplishment than medicine and nursing with clinical information systems and the evolution of Dental Informatics is tied to the slow development of robust dental information systems. Dentistry adopted dental EHRs mainly to automate administrative functions and enhance practice efficiency [21,71,91]. Only recently, did the use of dental EHRs for clinical purposes increase dramatically and dental EHRs evolved to include documentation, digital radiographs, patient education, and prevention of oral disease [21,71].…”