Advancing cognitive engineering methods to support user interface design for electronic health records.

Background: Despite many decades of research on the effective development of clinical systems in medicine, the adoption of health information technology to improve patient care continues to be slow, especially in ambulatory settings. This applies to dentistry as well, a primary care discipline with approximately 137,000 practitioners in the United States. A critical reason for slow adoption is the poor usability of clinical systems, which makes it difficult for providers to navigate through the information and obtain an integrated view of patient data.

Evaluating the effectiveness of modeling principles for data models.

We evaluated the effectiveness of modeling principles intended to harmonize the information representation between terminology-ontology models and information models. Our study utilized dental clinical statements and sample dental record questions. We asked experts to define the equivalency (mapping) of these elements and measured their agreement.

The impact of clinical information systems in dental schools.

Although Clinical Information Systems (CIS) are gaining widespread acceptance in dental schools, their impact on users is not well understood. We conducted separate qualitative studies of the impact of CIS on users in two dental schools and then compared our results. We found five themes in common.

Evaluation of the Systematized Nomenclature of Dentistry using case reports: preliminary results.

The Systematized Nomenclature of Dentistry (SNODENT) is an effort of the American Dental Association (ADA) to develop a controlled terminology that addresses the needs of clinical dentistry. The ADA, collaborating with the College of American Pathologists, developed and incorporated SNODENT as a microglossary of SNOMED. However, little evidence exists of the effectiveness of its clinical coverage.

Government's public policy in regards to the National Health Information Infrastructure: two approaches.

Public policy conducted whether by government institutions or by legislators has a definitive impact on society as whole. This presentation analyses these two approaches: (1) describing relevant activities conducted by the National Library of Medicine (NLM) and (2) analyzing legislation that makes direct reference to the National Health Information Infrastructure (NHII).

Clinical computing in general dentistry.

Objective: Measure the adoption and utilization of, opinions about, and attitudes toward clinical computing among general dentists in the United States.

Design: Telephone survey of a random sample of 256 general dentists in active practice in the United States.

Measurements: A 39-item telephone interview measuring practice characteristics and information technology infrastructure; clinical information storage; data entry and access; attitudes toward and opinions about clinical computing (features of practice management systems, barriers, advantages, disadvantages, and potential improvements); clinical Internet use; and attitudes toward the National Health Information Infrastructure.