Council on Information Technology
Dr. Kirt E. Simmons
The annual meeting of the Council On Information Technology (COIT) was held in early December, 2006. Our Board of Trustees (BOT) representative, Dr. William Gaylord, attended electronically as he was recovering from recent surgery and unable to travel. He reported the BOT continues to strive to support and implement electronic communications within the AAO. Dr. Larry Wang was appointed the new Chair of COIT by the BOT. The BOT further continues to support the COIT presence (by our representative Dr. Will Engilman) on the ADA Standards Committee on Dental Informatics, particularly in Subcommittees 11 (on Electronic Dental Records) and 12 (on Informatic Component Interoperability in Dentistry). In a similar vein, the BOT also supports the joint COIT/COOP AAO Practice Management Software Committee to improve the portability and/or conversion of digital patient information.
The BOT also encouraged the Council to continue their efforts on "podcast" services. A "podcast" (the term is derived from the popular Apple® device- the iPod®) is a digital video file that can be downloaded and played on computers, PDAs (personal digital assistants), iPod®s, certain cellular phones, etc. and is rapidly gaining in popularity. The BOT is also continuing to explore the concept of paperless meetings by the AAO.
Dr. Engilman reported on his initial experiences with the ADA Standards Committee on Dental Informatics, having attended their meeting in October. This ADA committee is composed of 60 voting members (19 consumers, 21 producers, 20 dentists) broken up into four subcommittees and 14 working groups. The role of this committee is to promote patient care and oral health by establishing and implementing standards, specifications, guidelines, etc. for computerized/electronic and digital records/procedures/etc. which will provide a seamless information exchange throughout all facets of healthcare. In other words, once this is implemented, it should be possible for any orthodontist, using any digital practice management system, to convey any relevant patient information, (be it financial, digital pictures or radiographs, clinic notes, etc.), to any other orthodontist, medical practitioner, dentist, or insurance carrier with no compatibility issues. Our involvement on the Committee is to insure that these proposed standards, etc. meet our requirements from an orthodontic perspective.
Related to this, the AAO Practice Management Software Committee, composed of COIT and COOP members plus our own Dr. Gayle Glenn as Board representative, met by conference call and recommended two surveys. One survey of the prominent orthodontic software vendors as to their intention to support leading medical and industry standards (such as those being developed by the ADA - see above), and another of the AAO members regarding their satisfaction/dissatisfaction with their current software, what features/functions are lacking, and what it would take for them to switch. So, be on the lookout for this survey hopefully and please provide your feedback to help the AAO address this important matter.
The Internet 2 collaboration between the AAO and several leading University programs is progressing, although it may not be the panacea we are looking for in terms of truly real time interactive lecture sharing between many orthodontic programs. Software, hardware and financial limitations have been identified and the emphasis now is on overcoming or eliminating these obstacles to the advantage of all interested parties.
The preliminary results of the AAO marketing program were reported and it was noted that the AAO Braces.org website "hits" and page views were up significantly related to this campaign. It was further noted that most of the activity generated by this campaign appears to be responding via the Web site rather than via phone inquiries. The Internet "Banner ads" have also been quite productive in driving inquiries to the AAO site.
The AAO continues to increase the number of Constituents and Components utilizing the AAO web templates and hosting services.
The upcoming 2008 Technology Conference continues to take a large portion of the COIT's efforts, as it will up until the Conference convenes. Put February 8-10, 2008 on your schedule now as this promises to be a great conference. We are still finalizing the schedule and the speakers but we currently have John Dvorak, columnist for PC Magazine and a popular computer book author and commentator (see http://www.speakers.com/listing.asp?sid=877 for more information) as our keynote speaker while Dr. David Sarver has graciously accepted an invitation to be the Conference Moderator as well as a speaker. The site has been finalized to the beautiful J.W. Marriott Resort and Spa (http://marriott.com/property/propertypage/LASJW) in exciting Las Vegas, Nevada.
The Council is also investigating many other ways electronic media can benefit you, our members, as well as our patients, potential patients, staff, educators, students, referral sources, AAO staff and AAO officers. Please feel free to contact me with your suggestions, issues, input, etc. regarding anything you believe to be of interest to the COIT or SWSO.