Electronic health records in dentistry: Clinical challenges and ethical issues

Abstract

Today Electronic Health Records (EHRs) have enjoyed wide spread adoption as the optimal choice for the management of patient health information (PHI). EHRs provide several distinct advantages over the use of paper records or a combination of electronic and hard copy options. The ability to interconnect the convenience of computer and software functionality with large amounts of PHI which must be managed for all patients who are being treated by a myriad of health care professionals, including dentists, makes the marriage of electronic data management with the patient record a logical choice. However, the use of EHRs in hospitals, institutions, clinics and private practices also presents many clinical challenges, as well as the potential for a breach in ethical patient care. This chapter discusses the impact of bringing the computer into the patient treatment arena and its effect on the doctor patient relationship, the privacy and security of PHI, ethical issues and clinical challenges, the use of EHRs for research and development of cloud-based EHRs, as well as the future of this technology.