Council on Information Technology
Dr. Kirt Simmons
The COIT has been very busy lately! Our last Council meeting was December 10, 2005 and the Braces.org (public website portion of the AAO site) working group composed of select COIT (including yours truly) and COC members met the week before. The COIT is busy upgrading and improving the members website as you read this. For instance, a new Web service called the AAO Express, has just recently been launched. The AAO Express is a personal Web portal that can be customized with your favorite news, stocks, weather information and Web links. AAO Express also provides you with access to the AAO members.org Web site and keeps you up-to-date on AAO news events. This new service is an attempt to put the AAO on every member's mind every time they use the Internet. Digital medical and dental record standards have now been established, thanks to the ADA Standards Committee. Progress is being made on having "paperless" AAO Board and Council meetings, improved distance learning opportunities and the AAO funded Internet 2 pilot program to allow orthodontic residencies shared interactive learning experiences. To comply with HIPAA issues regarding the security of patient information members wish to transfer by E-mail, the AAO sponsored FreEmail program is a secure E-mail program appropriate for this use. COIT has also been working on the 2008 AAO Technology Conference, currently set for February 8-10, 2008 in Las Vegas, Nevada. The details of presentations in the areas of clinical, practice management, practice marketing and technology trends are still being finalized. The Braces.org public site is being completely overhauled and updated in an effort to make it the premier public orthodontic website.