Title: Electronic dental record information model

Authors: Amit Acharya, Dinesh P. Mital, Titus K. Schleyer

Addresses: Center for Dental Informatics, School of Dental Medicine, University of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA; Department of Healthcare Informatics, University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey, New Jersey, USA. ' Department of Healthcare Informatics, University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey, New Jersey, USA. ' Center for Dental Informatics, School of Dental Medicine; Department of Biomedical Informatics, School of Medicine, University of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA

Abstract: Electronic dental records (EDRs) vary widely with regard to the content and structure of the information they contain. At a time when electronic patient records are becoming increasingly essential in delivering high-quality patient care, the |Tower of Babel| that today|s EDRs represent is an increasingly significant drawback. This situation prevents the computational approaches for supporting patient and will also significantly hamper the exchange of patient information within the emerging National Health Information Infrastructure. Incomplete and fragmented EDRs force many practitioners to maintain both paper- and computer-based patient records, potentially contributing to the very limited adoption of completely electronic patient records by general dentists. This paper proposes an electronic dental record information model (EDRIM) design as a reference standard for the content and structure of EDRs.

Keywords: electronic dental records; EDRs; computer-based patient records; content; structure; EDR standards; information modelling; EDRIM; reference standards; electronic patient records.

DOI: 10.1504/IJMEI.2009.026810

International Journal of Medical Engineering and Informatics, 2009 Vol.1 No.4, pp.418 - 434

Published online: 26 Jun 2009 *

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