School of Dentistry computers switch to new
system
by Christy K. Robinson
The School of Dentistry is bringing its computer hardware and software
from 1985 computerization to 1999 - 2001 capability. The original software
program, written in MIIS, was self-written, self-designed, and worked
very well during the eighties and nineties.
"We had things that many dental schools didn't have," says Paul
Richardson, SD'72, MEd, associate dean of clinic administration, "but
we didn't have some basics like computer printed insurance forms -- we
have done that by hand and typewriter for many years."
One goal was to bring software into the 21st century, to make a springboard
from which to digitize records. Says Dr. Richardson, "The first step
is to use a software package that has the strength and robustness to carry
us for the next five or six years without major intervention. The second
step is to upgrade our desktop hardware to at least 1999 standards (which
probably by the year 2000 will be well in the dust). We hope that we can
go 18 to 24 months without having to do any major upgrades. The third
is to enhance the dental school network to the point that it can bear
the kind of traffic that we foresee for digital image transmission."
The software package cost about $125,000. The next expenditure is for
leasing 150 computers. "We felt that computers are so transient,
that we'd try leasing this time," says Dr. Richardson. "On the
network itself, fiber optic has been installed from the basement to all
the main floors, hard wiring the entire clinic, and first and second floor
offices." The materials will be viable for five to ten years, Dr.
Richardson estimates, as far as their transmission capabilities.
"The network can transmit 100 BaseT. At present the floors communicate
at 10BaseT interfloor at 100 BaseT. While we're about this with the main
clinic, Dr. Caruso and his group in the orthodontic clinic are one or
two steps ahead of us on the digitization side. They're beginning to test
and find issues with our network that we hope to enhance as we go along,
so when we transition toward that in a couple of years, things will be
working well for us.
"At this point, the only things that are going to go online that
haven't before are treatment plans entered directly in the computer by
students. That is a step forward toward digitization. That starts July
of 1999. If we don't do it this year, we're in trouble, because our dear
old computer dies an unnatural death in 2000. Our old system is not 2000-compliant.
There are sub-programs that will still remain functional for some time,
but the main clinic will transfer July 6."
Dr. Richardson continues, "We've already started a pilot program
where we have 30 students with about a thousand patients contained in
this program. The students have had to endure some interesting glitches
in software that's not quite there, but they've been very cooperative
in getting us through this. We deeply appreciate the students in the pilot
program."
"I'd like to see us get to the point that each treatment site has
a computer. We've wired a fair amount of the clinic already, so that students
and faculty can directly access and update the patient records. We can
track students, patients, time, and use of the clinic. It will be a pushbutton
event then, not someone walking around making a list.
"By the time we're through placing computers this July, there'll
be 20 or better in the clinic, which is 20 more than we've had until now.
There's a nine-station laboratory on Taylor Street (data entry area) available
to students and faculty during the daytime. We use it as a teaching center
for upgrades, or bringing people along in the program. There are also
two student-lounge computers, and two in my office, so we've scattered
them around strategically. There will be some in the laboratories."
Could a patient's records just vaporize? No, because everything is still
retained in hard copy, including the chart and treatment plan. There will
always be hard copy backup. Dr. Richardson says, "We're not ready
to make the jump to a paperless society: we have some security concerns,
and concerns about maintenance -- we don't have servers large enough to
maintain all that. We really need backup servers, and ways to put this
on optical disks -- that's in the future. That's a fairly costly program
(now), but within two or three years, will be relatively inexpensive."
He says that the School of Medicine is slightly ahead. The new Medical
Center charts consist of a single sheet of paper which gives the name
and number of the patient computer files. Most of their records are digitized
right now. They made the decision to either digitize radiographs or buy
another 200 miles of storage space.
Meanwhile, back in the School of Dentistry, the staff who had telemonitors
now have computers which enhance capabilities at their work station. They
can do word processing and e-mail, and reporting on Excel or Access.
"I do see us going to full digital in time," says Dr. Richardson.
"There's plenty of evidence that that's the wave of the future. At
a conference in Key Largo, one of the attorneys who spoke says that digitized
records will be standard practice within five years, simply because once
they're bound onto a CD or DVD, there's very little change you can do,
with a one-way, writable-only disk. Courts are beginning to become comfortable
with those types of records. There are ways now to verify whether a record's
been tampered with, even to track the date and time. I think we'll go
that way as soon as we can."
Dr. Richardson says that at the moment, the School of Dentistry is in
the throes of making the software work. The software is QuickRecovery,
by General Systems Design.
"We ran a fairly extensive search through five dental schools and
two software companies. None of them met our needs exactly. This particular
software program meets our needs better because we have access to the
underlying codes, so instead of just seeing the screen, if I want to go
back into the data file to extract data for reporting or tracking, I can
do that directly without the program hindering my access to the underlying
file base. That's done through Microsoft programs such as Access or Excel.
"Reporting is the major enhancement right now, and you're allowed
access into the database itself, in contrast to the old machinery where
you can't access anything except paper reports. A report shows me everything
a student's done as of today. If I want to drop into the software I can
pull that out into Excel, then I can slice and dice and see where all
this generated. If we find a program we like that stores digitization,
digital images and compresses them well, its open architecture allows
us to add it to this program.
"There're ways to enable us to enhance it without having to write
software that's specific to us."
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February 28, 2001
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