SEARCH · Search PubMed
Search indexed PubMed citations on genomics, clinical trials, systematic reviews and public health. Explore titles, authors and supplied subject terms, then open the PubMed record.
Quote a phrase for an exact phrase match. Source license links do not imply unrestricted reuse.
Explore the source record for details and available documents.
Dental informatics is an emerging discipline applying computer and information science to dental practice, research, education, and management. To date, the dental informatics research literature has not been comprehensively reviewed. This study reports an initial analysis of the dental informatics literature. We developed an initial, comprehensive retrieval strategy to locate dental informatics citations in MEDLINE (1966-April 2003), including three concepts: dentistry, computers, and research. After refinement of the search, we manually classified the final set into four categories: (1) non-dental; (2) dental, but neither dental informatics nor IT-related; (3) dental informatics; and (4) IT in dentistry. We analyzed informatics and IT-related citations regarding their distribution across journals, growth rate, the number of authors and their publication frequency, and content as expressed by Medical Subject Headings (MeSH). The final set of citations (n = 3872) consisted of: 12% non-dental articles; 59% dental, but not informatics- or IT-related articles; 16% informatics-related articles; and 13% IT-related articles. Informatics-related citations appeared in 176 journals, and IT-related citations in 206 journals. Approximately 50 papers are currently published in both categories yearly. While a great many authors have contributed to this literature, very few have published more than three papers. Main topics of articles included "Imaging and Image Processing", "Computer-aided Diagnosis and Therapy", "Computer-aided Instruction", and "Other". The dental informatics literature is small, but growing. Imaging and image processing predominate as research topics.
BACKGROUND: Dental informatics is a relatively new field that has significant potential for supporting clinical care. Most dentists are unaware of what dental informatics is, what its goals are, what it has achieved and how they can get involved in it. METHODS: The authors conducted a literature review and several round-table discussions with dental informatics experts to discuss the preceding issues surrounding dental informatics. RESULTS: Dental informatics is the application of computer and information sciences to improve dental practice, research, education and management. Numerous applications that support clinical care, education and research have been developed. Dental informatics is beginning to exhibit the characteristics of a discipline: core literature, trained specialists and educational programs. CONCLUSIONS: Dental informatics presents possible solutions to many long-standing problems in dentistry, but it also faces significant obstacles and challenges. Its maturation will depend as much on the efforts of people as on the collective efforts of the profession. PRACTICE IMPLICATIONS: Dental informatics will produce an increasing number of applications and tools for clinical practice. Dentists must keep up with these developments to make informed choices.
Dental informatics is a young scientific discipline that is undergoing continual maturation. Its literature is estimated to consist of approximately 600 papers published between 1975 and 2003, and it is currently growing at a rate of about 50 papers annually. While interest in the discipline is growing, the number of core contributors to dental informatics research remains relatively small. Two major questions for the discipline are: What are the research challenges that dental informatics faces today? and How can the discipline be strengthened and positioned to maximize its success in addressing those challenges? Progress toward research challenges formulated more than ten years ago has been varied. While many new technologies have become available for clinical dental practice, research, and education, many fundamental problems remain to be addressed with informatics research. Recommendations to augment the research capacity in dental informatics include creating a stronger worldwide dental informatics research community, drawing more biomedical informatics researchers to dental research areas, providing career opportunities for dental informatics researchers, addressing grand challenges together as a community, and recruiting subsequent generations of dental informaticians.
Explore the source record for details and available documents.
OBJECTIVE: This study investigated knowledge, opinions, and experience regarding dental informatics and computers among first-year dental students (D1s) and fourth-year dental students (D4s). DESIGN: First-year (N = 95) and fourth-year (N = 91) students in 1990 and first-year (N = 97) and fourth-year (N = 91) students in 1993 at a school of dentistry were surveyed. MEASUREMENTS: Demographic characteristics and computer ownership were assessed. Knowledge was measured using an 18-item scale (range 0-18). Opinions were measured using a 13-item scale (range 13-65; alpha = 0.81). Experience was measured using a 28-item scale (range 28-140). RESULTS: Response rates were all nearly 100%. Computer ownership by the D1s increased from 17.9% to 43.8% in the three years between surveys. Knowledge and opinions of the 1990 and 1993 D1s were similar, although the latter reported more experience with hardware and software. Experience with dental informatics applications was lacking in both groups. The 1993 D4s had completed more computer courses than had the 1990 D4s (2.3 vs 0.9), and demonstrated significantly more knowledge and experience. Opinion scores were nearly identical for these groups. The D4s in 1993 who had been D1s in 1990 had increased their knowledge of and experience with informatics applications during dental school. A difference in computer knowledge between the entering D1 males and females was observed in 1990, but was essentially gone by 1993 for the same individuals. CONCLUSIONS: Entering students had more computing knowledge and skill than their predecessors. Informatics knowledge and experience increased during dental school, and knowledge disparities between genders disappeared.
Biomedical informatics is a maturing discipline. During the last forty years, it has developed into a research discipline of significant scale and scope. One of its subdisciplines, dental informatics, is beginning to emerge as its own entity. While there is a growing cadre of trained dental informaticians, dental faculty and administrators in general are not very familiar with dental informatics as an area of scientific inquiry. Many confuse informatics with information technology (IT), are unaware of its scientific methods and principles, and cannot relate dental informatics to biomedical informatics as a whole. This article delineates informatics from information technology and explains the types of scientific questions that dental and other informaticians typically explore. Scientific investigation in informatics centers primarily on model formulation, system development, system implementation, and the study of effects. Informatics draws its scientific methods mainly from information science, computer science, cognitive science, and telecommunications. Dental informatics shares many types of research questions and methods with its parent discipline, biomedical informatics. However, there are indications that certain research questions in dental informatics require novel solutions that have not yet been developed in other informatics fields.
The ready availability of computers, combined with the advent of sophisticated software development tools, has resulted in a proliferation of dental instructional software. The quality of these products varies widely. Working Group 5 of the Standards Committee for Dental Informatics has published an initial set of guidelines to help course designers develop high-quality instructional materials. In the future, these guidelines will evolve into standards. This article summarizes the guidelines and considers future actions that may be taken once the standards are in place.
Dentistry is undergoing significant changes with need for the dentist to manage a larger body of knowledge and information. There will be increasing reliance on electronic information systems in education, research, and dental practice. Dental informatics is concerned with computer and information science and technology and communications. Goals, that could be adopted for Australia, were proposed in the USA in 1989. Specific action steps that could meet those goals are proposed for Australia.
Explore the source record for details and available documents.
Explore the source record for details and available documents.
Explore the source record for details and available documents.
When truly significant scientific challenges are overcome, it profoundly changes the daily activities, as well as the future research activities, of everyone involved in the related field. By identifying and describing the grand challenges facing a scientific field, we can help funding agencies identify and prioritize projects for support, stimulate and encourage new investigators to work on these intellectual and technological challenges, and help define the field itself. In this article, we present an informatics-oriented, future-patient-care scenario, then describe a series of applications and the related informatics grand challenges facing the dental field today. New techniques and technologies to help us overcome these challenges would facilitate the development of truly monumental applications, such as a comprehensive electronic oral health record, an automated dental treatment planning system for all diagnoses, or a system to profile patient risk for chronic oral diseases.
Explore the source record for details and available documents.
Explore the source record for details and available documents.
Explore the source record for details and available documents.
Dental informatics is a newly developed discinpline which is integrated by modern stomatology, computer sciences and informatics. In this paper, the concept, importance, basic principle and contents were discussed in details. The relationship among dental informatics and related sciences, the formation and history of dental informatics were also described in this paper.
Explore the source record for details and available documents.