The American Dental Association (ADA) is inviting vendors of dental systems to participate in testing their systems for conformance to the new interoperability standards at the IHE Connectathon on January 14, 2014, in Chicago. Annually thereafter, the ADA and Integrating the Healthcare Enterprise (IHE) will hold the Connectathon for vendors of digital dental health care information and imaging systems to test the implementation of interoperability standards. Independent judges will assess and verify interoperability among systems.
As the dental and orthodontic industry join the growing list of health care domains preparing for the transition from paper records to electronic health records (EHR), the IHE Dental Domain has been formed as a working group to develop profiles and related technical documentation for this digital systems integration. These projects are designed to assist ADA members in selecting and using digital dental technologies and computer information systems whose interoperability in real-world practice settings has been demonstrated.
The goal is to allow dentists and orthodontists to exchange diagnostic digital dental images and patient data securely with other health care entities no matter the type of software or systems. This technology, based on the ADA-endorsed Digital Imaging and Communications in Medicine (DICOM) standard and other proven accepted standards, is becoming a practical and reliable capability of dental digital imaging and practice-management systems.
Following the Connectathon, an interoperability demonstration is planned for the 2014 ADA Annual Session. There, attendees will be able to exchange images in a real-world setting, giving ADA members a new tool by which to evaluate potential digital systems for their practices.
