The Consistency of Care module provides interoperability to information sharing of electronic health records between dentistry and medicine.
Henry Schein One announced the availability of its new software module: Consistency of Care. The module integrates dental and medical patient records, and, according to the company, reflects an increased interest among healthcare providers to offer comprehensive services to patients.
Consistency of Care is an open architecture software that supports the growing need for interoperability and information sharing between dentistry and medicine. It was developed by Exan Software, a Henry Schein One company and the creator of the axiUm dental management software suite, which is a software product used by dental and dental hygiene schools and large group practices.
To ensure that medical and dental patient health records are accessible to all health care providers, the Consistency of Care solution within axiUm reportedly allows dental schools to communicate patient health records to their medical counterparts, regardless of a medical school’s software. This integration is intended to provide faculty and students with a holistic view of a patient’s health, ensuring best practice principles and the highest patient care standards.
The connection of axiUm’s dental electronic health record (EHR) to a medical EHR through the Consistency of Care module allows schools to consolidate patient record benefits without compromising academic dental software. An Application Programming Interface (API) synchronizes patient data to ensure patient information, medical conditions, and allergies are accurate, providing health care professionals with a single view of their patient’s health records.
“Our goal at Henry Schein One is to provide innovative practice solutions to dental professionals, so they can focus on providing the best patient care possible,” said Mike Baird, Chief Executive Officer, Henry Schein One. “We’re excited to bring the Consistency of Care module to market, as the benefits of integrated dental and medical care are clear, with improved patient outcomes and increased efficiency.”
Penn Dental Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania is the first dental school to implement axiUm’s Consistency of Care integration solution, communicating its dental patients’ EHR data to its medical school.
“Several years ago, we looked at an electronic medical record that included a small dental component,” said Dr Mark Wolff, dean at Penn Dental Medicine. “However, we concluded that it was not worth the extra effort required to make the system work. We needed to come up with a solution that would save us time and satisfy industry interoperability standards, with the least amount of time and resources for the faculty and students to switch. axiUm’s Consistency of Care solution allows us to keep using axiUm while maintaining interoperability between the two EHRs.”
According to Henry Schein One, axiUm software manages the technical aspect of a student’s dental education—from a student’s first year to graduation. A dental-first design built specifically for the dental market, axiUm’s features reportedly support the ever-changing academic landscape, from dental school grant funding applications and financial tracking to student supervision in clinics, mitigating risks associated with student practitioners, and the preparation for accreditation.
“The use of axiUm is important to us because the ability to manage grades, individual student performances, dental laboratory case tracking, and patient billing are daily requirements at Penn Dental Medicine,” said Dean Wolff. “Larger medical EHRs do not manage student grades or performances, and they have issues with billing for dental procedures. Keeping our current dental EHR and integrating with medical gives us additional flexibility in managing Penn Dental Medicine.”
The Consistency of Care module, powered by Redox, integrates directly into Epic software, a clinical solution used by medical professionals to support functions related to patient care. Penn Medicine utilizes Epic to manage their patients’ EHRs, while Penn Dental Medicine utilizes axiUm. Redox helps to standardize health care data from any source, providing a single API for exchanging health care data with axiUm.
