Dental informatics : strategic issues for the dental profession : [Conference of the American dental association

During the course of this year, 1990, dentistry will celebrate its sesquicentennial as a profession. In February 1840, the Baltimore College of Dental Surgery, the Dental School of the University of Maryland, was chartered by the Maryland General Assembly as the world's first dental school. In the same year the American Society of Dental Surgeons, the antecedent of the present day American Dental Association, was founded, also in Baltimore. In the previous year, 1839, the American Journal of Dental Science was initiated as the first periodic scientific and professional publication in dentistry, later evolving to the Journal of the American Dental Association. With the congruence of three fundamental elements which are essential to any profession--a unique program of education, a formal means to communicate and freely share new information, and an organization devoted to maintenance of professional ethics and standards through self-regulation--dentistry began evolving to its current status as a valued and respected health profession. From its birth and through the intervening century and a half, dentistry has been a profession heavily reliant on technology as well as science. Dentists variously are credited with the discovery and development of general anesthesia and the precision casting technique; and they make significant use of rotary cutting instruments, ultrasonics, laser technology, unique biomaterials, and intraosseous implants, to mention only a few techniques. Front Matter....Pages N2-X Dental Informatics: What, Why, Who, Where, and When....Pages 1-6 Front Matter....Pages 7-7 Keynote Address: Informatics in Dentistry....Pages 9-16 The History of Medical Informatics: Implications for Dental Informatics....Pages 17-29 Nursing Informatics: How It Evolved and Its Current Status....Pages 31-34 Dental Informatics: An Overview....Pages 35-39 The Problem-Knowledge Coupler: Applications in Health Care Delivery....Pages 41-47 Front Matter....Pages 49-53 Informatics Applications in Dental Practice....Pages 55-61 Informatics and Dental Education....Pages 63-67 Research in Informatics/Informatics in Research....Pages 69-74 Conference Outcomes and General Recommendations....Pages 75-82 Back Matter....Pages 83-107 This book is a report of a strategic planning conference on dental informatics held at the Aspen Institute, Wye, Maryland during August 1989. The conference brought together representatives of the principal U.S. dental organizations, dental academicians working on research and development, as well as individuals from other health professions. The ultimate goal is to identify current initiatives in dental informatics and how they can be meshed into "whole cloth" so that the quality of dental patient care, dental education and dental research can benefit. A further goal is for the various organizations represented to identify their roles in developing informatics in coordinated fashion throughout all segments of dentistry