Great graphic, and so true. In fact, I bet that could be turned into a pretty cool infographic. The scariest part is what it describes as the “old days” don’t seem that long ago to me

Thanks for your great content!

Ken Kaufman
Aribex

Your article, “Dental High Tech Predictions for 2012,” that lists the advances which you lament will not occur, reveals dentists’ underlying quiet disappointment in the progress of EDRs that have been discussed only privately until now.
http://myemail.constantcontact.com/Predictions-for-2012-that-will-Never-Happen.html?soid=1102570573881&aid=tGSY88q38fI

Since this makes you the second dentist in the nation to publicly acknowledge the unpopular truth about EHRs in dentistry, we now have the minimum number necessary for conversation – should you be interested. Regardless, I salute you, Larry. What you did took courage.

I empathize about lack of progress in interoperable electronic dental records. I too wanted to witness the miracles of Evidence-Based Dentistry SAFELY data-mined – with permission – from dentists’ computers. But it doesn’t look like real-time magic will happen in 2012 or perhaps even in our lifetime If dentists don’t communicate with each other.

As you know, until the horrendous security problems with EDRs are mitigated, dentists will never enjoy interoperability simply because consumers will not cooperate. Once dentists lose patients’ trust in EDRs, they will simply seek dentists who use paper records, and interoperability will take at least another generation.

I’ve studied the security problem extensively. Common sense says that if patients’ Protected Health Information (PHI) is unavailable, it cannot be stolen by burglar, hacker or dishonest employee. Only then will EDRs be safer than paper dental records.

Have you and I ever discussed de-identifying EDRs?

D. Kellus Pruitt DDS

-Hector