Innovative models of dental care delivery and coverage are emerging across oral health care systems causing changes to treatment and benefit plans. A novel addition to these models is digital risk assessment, which offers a promising new approach that incorporates the use of a cloud-based technology platform to assess an individual patient's risk for oral disease. Risk assessment changes treatment by including risk as a modifier of treatment and as a determinant of preventive services.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe study of biological processes at cell type resolution requires the isolation of the specific cell types from an organism, but this presents a great technical challenge. In recent years a number of methods have been developed that allow deep analyses of the epigenome, transcriptome, and ribosome-associated mRNA populations in individual cell types. The application of these methods has lead to a clearer understanding of important issues in plant biology, including cell fate specification and cell type-specific responses to the environment.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFTranscriptional gene silencing is a gene regulatory mechanism essential to all organisms. Many transcriptional regulatory mechanisms are associated with epigenetic modifications such as changes in chromatin structure, acetylation and methylation of core histone proteins, and DNA methylation within regulatory regions of endogenous genes and transgenes. Although several maize mutants have been identified from prior forward genetic screens for epigenetic transcriptional silencing, these screens have been far from saturated.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFObjectives: The objective was to engage health professions students as leaders in spreading the World Health Organization Surgical Checklist. The published impact of the checklist in reducing surgical complications and deaths, combined with its ease of use, offers an ideal target for students to save lives and prevent suffering. As members of the "Check a Box.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Although evidence suggests electronic health records (EHRs) can improve quality and efficiency, provider adoption rates in the US ambulatory setting are relatively low. Prior studies have identified factors correlated with EHR use, but less is known about characteristics of physicians on the verge of adoption.
Objective: To compare characteristics of physicians who are imminent adopters of EHRs with EHR users and non-users.
Little is known about how providers expect the implementation of a new electronic health record (EHR) will affect their clinical workflow. We found that providers currently completing clinical tasks electronically are more satisfied with task completion than those completing similar tasks on paper. Yet, these already electronic providers expect less future satisfaction with the new EHR compared with paper-based providers.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFDental offices and clinics are subject to the same general safety requirements as other workplaces. Current guidelines, inspections, education, and training focus on infectious disease as the major workplace hazard for dental health care personnel (DHCP). However, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration has cited an increasing variety and number of general safety hazards during inspections of dental offices.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFPa Dent J (Harrisb)
July 2006
Newly revised and updated guidelines from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommend adoption of procedures to improve the microbiological quality of water used in dental treatment. These recommendations represent the consensus of experts from a wide range of scientific and clinical disciplines and are based on the best currently available evidence. Dentists and the manufacturers of dental equipment must consider the infection control, occupational health and risk-management implications of biofilm colonization in dental equipment, and take appropriate measures to provide water of appropriate microbiological quality clinical procedures.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFNewly revised and updated guidelines from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommend adoption of procedures to improve the microbiological quality of water used in dental treatment. These recommendations represent the consensus of experts from a wide range of scientific and clinical disciplines and are based on the best currently available evidence. Dentists and the manufacturers of dental equipment must consider the infection control, occupational health and risk-management implications of biofilm colonization in dental equipment, and take appropriate measures to provide water of appropriate microbiological quality clinical procedures.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFDentistry's role in responding to bioterrorism and other catastrophic events is evolving and may involve a wide range of activities. Organized dentistry. local dental societies.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFHumans, like every other living thing on Earth, have evolved in a world dominated by many billions of microscopic life forms. Most of the time, we live in a state of harmony (or even mutualism) with our invisible coinhabitants. When this balance becomes disturbed however, the consequences can be devastating.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThis article reviews the nature of aquatic biofilms in dental waterlines and their effect on the quality of water used in dental treatment. Also addressed is the current state of knowledge about the health consequences of microbial contamination of dental treatment water and the evidence basis for various treatment options. The rationale for treatment of dental water systems and criteria for selection of products are discussed.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: The National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research, or NIDCR; the American Dental Association, or ADA; and the Organization for Safety & Asepsis Procedures, or OSAP, sponsored a workshop on the topic of dental unit waterlines, or DUWLs, on Sept. 29, 2000, at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Md. These organizations invited a group of experts from the ADA, NIDCR, OSAP, the U.
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