Health information science and technology in oral health care delivery, management / administration and research.

https://www.facebook.com/groups/260766672001156

Health informatics is the interdisciplinary study of the design, development, adoption, and application of IT-based innovations in healthcare services delivery, management, and planning. 1 Healthcare Informatics may also be defined as “the integration of healthcare sciences, computer science, information science, and cognitive science to assist in the management of healthcare information” (Saba & McCormick, 2015, p. 232)Dental Informatics is a specialization within Health Informatics, a multi-disciplinary field that seeks to improve health care through the application of Health Information Technology (HIT) and information science to health care delivery, health information management, health care administration, research, information gathering and synthesis, and knowledge sharing. 2

Informatics is now considered as an essential and integral component of healthcare. In all the different fields of healthcare such as Medicine, Nursing and Dentistry, basic education in Informatics has already been incorporated as part of the undergraduate curriculum. Knowledge in the fundamentals of health informatics now plays a very important role in the development and training of future healthcare practitioners.

Telehealth, Telemidicine and Teledentistry

In the United States, the demands of their federal and state programs to promote Healthcare Informatics related initiatives resulted in the adoption of incorporating the discipline in the basic education in the fields of healthcare. Dentistry has engaged informatics and information technology to meet clinical, administrative, research, and educational needs. 2 Many dental Schools in Asia and the Pacific, such as the Tokyo Medical and Dental University 4, and several Universities in China 5 also have incorporated Dental Informatics in their undergraduate Dentistry Program. The PH Commission on Higher Education has already included “computer fundamentals and dental informatics” as a part of the Basic Dental Sciences in the undergraduate curriculum.

The FB group: ORAL HEALTH INFORMATICS PH envisions to concretely bridge the discipline of Philippine Dentistry and Health Informatics in order to enable the Dental Health professionals and students to significantly benefit from rapid information technological advances. But in the advent of these emerging technologies, we also need to be concerned with how Filipino dental health professionals employ these technological systems accurately, efficiently, and safely and therefore development of basic skills and training in the use of common and popular Health Information Systems is essential as part of this group’s objectives. Join us!

References:

  1. US National Library of Medicine: https://www.nlm.nih.gov/hsrinfo/informatics.html
  2. ADA Center for Informatics and Standards: http://www.ada.org/en/member-center/member-benefits/practice-resources/dental-informatics
  3. CHED website: http://www.ched.gov.ph/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/Sample-Curricula-Doctor-of-Dental-Medicine.pdf
  4. Tokyo Medical and Dental University: http://www.tmd.ac.jp/dent/dental_e/de07.html
  5. Shengcai Qia, †, Yanhong Yanb, †, En Luoc, Jian Hud: The development of dental informatics and dental information technology in China: A systematic study, Journal of Dental Sciences Volume 10, Issue 2, June 2015, Pages 176–184
  6. Master’s Degree in Health Informatics Curriculum: Medical Informatics Unit,  UP College of Medicine