News

If you would like to submit a news story for publication on the DIOC website, please contact Heiko
Spallek. Please note that submitted news will be reviewed for relevance.

September 2014
Research opportunity
A software program that, among other things, mathematically models periodontal disease has been developed and
requires more stringent examination than the past year of successful in-house testing. The software developer
seeks a periodontal and/or dental informatics graduate student looking for a certificate program research topic. The
developer will provide advice, fully-committed mentoring, plus a $5000 research award. Student is expected to
work with an academic institution and produce work that is worthy of being published in a peer-reviewed journal.
Opportunity is designed to be a win-win for all concerned. Inquiries as to details of the project (see DIOC listing
Dental Integra under projects) may be directed to: DrS@thedentalintegra.com.

August 2013
Dental Informatics Seminar
The seminar "Development and Evaluation of Oral-Systemic Patient Education Modules" held on July 24, 2013 was
organized by the Dental Informatics Research and Training Program at the Marshfield Clinic Research Foundation.
The presentation by Nicolette (Nikki) Klucas is available for viewing at your convenience on Marshfield Clinics
Mediasite.

March 2012
New Book: Integration of Medical and Dental Care and Patient Data. valerie j h powell rt(r) phd (17
),franklin din (18
), amit acharya (34
) and Miguel Humberto Torres-Urquidy (11
) (Eds.) seek to
optimize the delivery of healthcare by stating why isolated components of healthcare delivery need to work
together, by asserting how health information technology (HIT) can help these components collaborate to improve
care quality and patient safety, by documenting how existing barriers stand in way of interdisciplinary collaborative
practice supported by HIT, and by recommending how to remove such barriers. Link to book.
Article on Social Media in Dental Education: Social media are part of the fabric of today's world, from which
health care is not excluded. Based on its distribution capacity, a single individual can cause an amount of damage
to an institution that only a few decades ago required access to a mainstream news media outlet. A need for
regulation with regard to the use of social media seemed to have caught the eye of the medical profession, but did
not seem to penetrate the dental community with the same level of attention. Drs. Spallek and Oakley realized that
their institutions or professions could potentially be cast in a negative light by social media postings. Read more.