Undergrad Looking for Dentists to Answer a Few Questions for Research Paper

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Hello everyone, I was hoping that some of you could answer some of the following questions about a research paper I am doing for my undergrad. I will be graduating soon and starting up dental school this fall!

My research is on the integration of dental medical records with physician medical records into one electronic medical record. I am trying to find out more of the potential benefits to dentists and patients, as well as the barriers that stand in the way. Here are my questions:

1) What do you see, if any, are the potential benefits to you as a dental professional of integrating physician medical records with dental medical records?

2) Do you think this will benefit patients? How?

3) Do you use an electronic health record?

4) How long have you used an electronic health record?

5) If you had to guess, what percentage of your dental colleagues use electronic medical records?

6) Are there any barriers you see that are preventing some dental offices from getting an electronic medical record?

7) Did you make the switch from paper to electronic medical records? If you made the switch from paper to electronic medical records, what were some of your barriers and obstacles?

8) What do you see are the barriers stopping the integration of dental medical records with physician medical records?

9) Do you know if any of the dental medical record software companies have this goal of integration in mind or if they are doing anything to help the development of this type of project?

10) Is this type of development something you want to see in the future?

11) Anything else you would like to add about the integration of dental medical records with physician medical records?


Thanks for your help!

Originally Posted by znanie

Hello everyone, I was hoping that some of you could answer some of the following questions about a research paper I am doing for my undergrad. I will be graduating soon and starting up dental school this fall!

My research is on the integration of dental medical records with physician medical records into one electronic medical record. I am trying to find out more of the potential benefits to dentists and patients, as well as the barriers that stand in the way. Here are my questions:

1) What do you see, if any, are the potential benefits to you as a dental professional of integrating physician medical records with dental medical records?

2) Do you think this will benefit patients? How?

3) Do you use an electronic health record?

4) How long have you used an electronic health record?

5) If you had to guess, what percentage of your dental colleagues use electronic medical records?

6) Are there any barriers you see that are preventing some dental offices from getting an electronic medical record?

7) Did you make the switch from paper to electronic medical records? If you made the switch from paper to electronic medical records, what were some of your barriers and obstacles?

8) What do you see are the barriers stopping the integration of dental medical records with physician medical records?

9) Do you know if any of the dental medical record software companies have this goal of integration in mind or if they are doing anything to help the development of this type of project?

10) Is this type of development something you want to see in the future?

11) Anything else you would like to add about the integration of dental medical records with physician medical records?


Thanks for your help!

1) Make politicians & attorneys happy.
2) Dentists being able to see your cholesterol numbers... no validity there. Maybe your allergies? That you could also know by asking your patient.
3) Yes on Dentrix.
4) 2 years, as long as I was an associate.
5) Probably about 50-70% are digitized, non-integrated internal systems.
6) Cost.
7) No.
8) There are very little benefits of integrating physician and dental records.
9) I do not but I would imagine that some companies would like to have the majority stake in medical and dental records as there are approximately 200,000 dental professionals in the country.
10) Why would I want to integrate medical records with dental records? There is little/no reason to do this and I would think that physicians wouldn't really care what steps I took to restore tooth #19.
11) I also do not really think I would be interested in reading a medical record. How would it really help me as a dentist to restore your teeth? Yeah sure I could say that I am integrated, but that doesn't really matter.

I work now in a major medical center that just went across the board fully digital last year with a one system for all specialties, except dentistry Why? Well I would imagine that dentists as a whole are not interested in the specifics of what medical procedures you had done and I would imagine they are not interested in the specifics of what you had done in your mouth.

I can see some benefit for knowing things like your radiation exposure before placing implants or history of chemotherapy or if your diabetes is controlled. But all of those questions I can ask the patient and if I feel like I need to know any information, I can request a consult from their physician.