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SCDI Meetings in Denver

Posted October 19, 2016 by Dawn

The second meeting of the ADA Standards Committee on Dental Informatics this year was held at the Hyatt Regency Hotel in Denver, Colorado. XLDent continues to participate in Working Group 11.1 Standard Architecture and Working Group 11.9 Core Reference Data. This year we were invited to participate as a voting member and happily accepted the invitation.

Our working group Chairman, Dr. Mark Diehl, unexpectedly passed away last April. Dr. Diehl’s most notable accomplishment is the work he had done to produce numerous standards and technical reports related to the architecture, data structure, and open implementation of the electronic health record. Most notable are the following:

  • ANSI/ADA Standard No. 1000,Standard Clinical Data Architecture (2001, revised 2010);
  • ANSI/ADA Standard No. 1027, Implementation Guide for Standard No. 1000 (2010);
  • ANSI/ADA Standard No. 1039, Clinical Conceptual Data Model (2006);
  • ANSI/ADA Standard No. 1067, Electronic Dental Record System Standard Functional Requirements (2013).

He was recognized as an expert in the science of clinical informatics and I was proud to have served with him on WG 11.1, 11.9; and, the recent progress we made on ADA Technical Report No. 1091 for Cloud Computing and Data Storage. Dr. Diehl will be missed and we will do our best to continue the work he started. During the Plenary session today, Dr. Amit Acharya was nominated as Chairman of the Subcommittee on Clinical Informatics and Dr. Terry O’Toole as Vice Chairman.

During our session, WG 11.9, which will define a core set of data to support the Implementation Guide for TR 1067, focused on narrowing the scope of the project because the group was not able to make much progress given the expanse of the undertaking. Dr. Mark Jurkovich proposed that we focus on the exchange of information based on current standards that already exist (i.e. X12 835, 837D, 270, etc.) and are successfully in practice to exchandawn-no-backgroundge objects of data, versus focusing on the monumental scope of interoperability. It was concluded that the working group will take a “bottom-up” approach in that we will start with a focus on establishing a standard core set of data that is typically exchanged during a referral between a general dentist and a specialist, for example. All of this will be done with the ultimate goal of achieving interoperability at some point in the future. Keeping this ultimate goal in our sights means that we will need to decide on the standard document or transport mechanism (i.e. HL7 CCDA format) so that we can begin populating it with this first core dataset.

With these meetings wrapping up, I’m on my way to meet up with Duane at the ADMC meeting….and tomorrow the ADA 2016 Exhibit Hall opens!

Posted in: Dental Conference, Dental Software, Electronic Dental Records, XLDent Company, Leave a comment/ No Comments »
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SCDI Sponsored CE Course Highlights

Posted October 13, 2014 by Dawn

Following the Standards Committee on Dental Informatics meetings Monday-Wednesday, the SCDI sponsored two standards-based CE courses at ADA 2014.  The courses were offered twice a day on Thursday-Friday and again on Saturday morning.  XLDent presented in the course entitled Standards for Exchange of Digital Images and EHR Data for Patient Treatment.  This course was presented by Dr. Gregory Zeller, SCDI Chairman, and demonstrated the transmission of HIPAA-compliant email with patient image and clinical summary attachments.

Vendor participation was crucial for a real-world presentation of these standards and demonstration of how email is sent through a Health Information Service Provider.  DataMotion™, located in Florham Park, New Jersey, acted as the third-party HISP and facilitated acquisition of direct email addresses for all of the vendor participants.

XLDent was selected by the SCDI to participate in this demonstration because of our leadership and focus on the further development of standards for the Electronic Dental Record.  Other vendors included XDR, Sirona and Medicor Imaging.  These vendors primarily focused on the transmission of DICOM images.  As a Dental Practice Management Software solution, XLDent was able to not only demonstrate the secure transfer of DICOM images, but also the transmission of Clinical Notes and Electronic Dental Record data.  Participants were able to see how streamlined the process of data export is in the XLDent paperless workflow and also got to see our mobile technology in action.

The courses were well attended and established a starting point for educating the ADA membership about standards and the secure transmission of PHI using direct protocols.  This a beginning.  However, it can only be truly successful when utilization of direct email addresses becomes the norm.  In the meantime, dental practices should protect email transmissions containing PHI utilizing high-grade encryption services like the SecureMail solution XLDent offers its clients.

It was a very busy week!  We made lots of new friends and thoroughly enjoyed the experience.  A special thanks to the ADA and the other vendors that helped make this CE course possible!

Posted in: Dental Practice Management Software, Dental Technology, Electronic Dental Records,
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