key: cord-0795409-trggom0a
authors: Kaur, Harneet; Izhar, Arisha
title: Can Orthodontic Informatics Combat the Pandemic Pitfalls?
date: 2020-10-03
journal: J Indian Orthod Soc
DOI: 10.1177/0301574220963433
sha: ccd020fa56bfb3548271804ca54914741f5521d6
doc_id: 795409
cord_uid: trggom0a

The largest public health crisis of our time, COVID-19 has recklessly squandered many of the channelized healthcare facilities globally with execution of newer guidelines over the standard architectural norms. There has been unparalleled use of smartphones and internet services to bear the major pitfall- social distancing- especially for elective treatment services. This demands a new paradigm shift from offline to online doctor-patient, student-educator, researcher-researcher operations. This articles provides an insight into potential role of orthodontic informatics to provide a combined platform to generate a learning system that routinely collects, correlates, and analyzes data for developing artificial intelligence programs, lab exploratory systems, clinical decision support systems and health-information exchange systems. In order to develop this system, orthodontic analytic communities as start-ups for developing user-friendly programs must be encouraged, where orthodontic informatics itself can be taken up as a didactic career source.

An estimated 4.1 billion people were using the Internet in 2019. 1 In 2020, the enigmatic COVID-19 pandemic overwhelmed health care services globally with the unparalleled use of smartphones and Internet services. Remote monitoring and telecommunication services have become a need of the hour to reduce the in-office visits.

Today, the hour demands a paradigm shift from information production (in the form of orthodontic records and research) to information utilization through mobile and Internet applications. A vast amount of data available is through electronic dental records as well as orthodontic research; yet, they are stored in the beanbags of cloud and individual server systems. Informatics, here, helps to generate a learning system that routinely collects, correlates, and analyzes data for its further exploitation at the end-user interface. As our patients have become more aware of evidence-based health care, this can certainly be worked to generate evidence-based answers.

With increased sources of digitization in orthodontics over the past 2 decades, the volume of data produced from the electronic orthodontic/dental record systems are also growing exponentially year by year. 2 The first step in dental/orthodontic informatics is to convert the gathered data to formulate a big data pool. Dental health data repositories in several professional societies have been formulated across the world that generate a centralized data pool derived from electronic health records (EHRs). When combined with a knowledge base (in terms of machine learning, text interpretation, and knowledge engineering), these data pools can then be converted into database frameworks that can be further designed toward meeting specific health care objectives. By adopting standard architectural guidelines for performing activities-such as data gathering, pre-processing, data analysis, interpretation, and visualization-these diversified big data frameworks then need to utilize for the end user in the form of artificial intelligence programs, laboratory exploratory systems, clinical decision support systems, and health information exchange systems. 3 Data analytics can thus help generate evidence-based support systems to answer basic questions about common clinical information and patient management problems. 4 In orthodontics, the golden opportunities with informatics thus include the following. 

Orthodontic informatics still requires a revolution: Not only in the clinical practice, infrastructure, or the hierarchy of the protocol right from patient education and registration, to the final treatment rendered and posttreatment follow-ups but also the research strategy and information exchange among orthodontists. The key challenges include implementation in changing the current practice model from data collection to data pooling, resistance, and criticism from colleagues in data sharing, and lack of trust of some clinicians in evidence or research. Some of the other technical challenges include ensuring interoperability in information systems; to secure user authentication and privacy issues; developing standards to ensure consensus among stakeholders; and to reduce the cost of digital services to ensure the maximum inflow of data. 4, 5 Legal challenges include manipulation of digital files/ digital forgery, questionable efficiency, and legitimacy of digital signatures to validate dental records; the requirement and confidentiality of electronic consenting for patients, participants, researchers, and even clinicians for transfer or exchange of records.

Nevertheless, despite these challenges, informatics offers the contactless process to optimize the new norms set by the contagion.

To respect the social distancing norms and combat the pandemic, orthodontic informatics plays an essential role to convert the reliable scientific knowledge into evidencebased learning. With the suspension of international travel and restricted mobilization of persons, it is also essential to develop global universal access to orthodontic services through informatics in terms of both patient care and research. This includes start-up orthodontic analytic communities for developing user-friendly programs for the stakeholders. Also, there must be an updated information resource training for all students, researchers, educators, as well as clinicians. Overall, data analysts and orthodontics should work together hand in hand, and orthodontic informatics itself can be taken up as a didactic career source.

Measuring Digital Development: Facts and Figures

Up in the air: orthodontic technology unplugged

Implications of big data analytics in developing healthcare frameworks-a review

Dental informatics in India: time to embrace the change

Evidence-Based Health Informatics

The authors declared no potential conflict of interests with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

The authors received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Harneet Kaur https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9107-363XArisha Izhar https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3241-3585