Ivan Dus: Developer of the
ZeroBase program
by Christy K. Robinson
ZeroBase creator Ivan Dus
is an amazing man. His expertise is valued not only in his native Italy
at the University of Rome (Sapienza), but also at the University of Barcelona,
and Loma Linda University in California, where he is assistant professor
of orthodontics. He is fascinated by science, particularly neurosciences
and the application of technology.
Ivan Dus, MD, DDS, recently completed his four-year specialty certificate
in neuropsychophysiology, and is teaching neuromuscular physiology, speech
pathology and dysfunction in the head and neck masticatory system. He
has been working for 12 years in the field of surface electromyography,
studying spectroanalysis to understand muscle fatigue.
He and Dr. Joseph Caruso have the goal of developing a behavioral physiology
lab to investigate dysfunction in the orthodontic and temporomandibular
patient.
 |
|
| Ivan Dus, MD, DDS |
In 1980, Dr. Dus wrote a computer program on orthodontic diagnostics, and tried to put together a logical thought process. He met Dr. Carl Gugino in 1982, while taking orthodontic courses in Italy. Dr. Gugino started to develop an orthodontic office management approach, and began applying management science to diagnosis and treatment planning.
"I asked him to give me manuals, and I started working on it," says Dr. Dus. "I developed all the microanalyses and knowledge bases. I hired computer science engineers, who translated this into programming language. Since the beginning, I had a belief that just by having a small personal computer, it was not possible to solve the needs of an orthodontic practice. I thought that over the years, we would have to face the need for a very powerful and distributed information system that we could use to retrieve information from anywhere, inside or outside the office."
Dr. Dus continues, "Because of this, back in 1982, we chose to develop our computer system in UNIX. This was a very tough choice because the knowledge to do this is much more sophisticated than developing a DOS-based program. Today, though, this solution has become a winner because in the last year, with the advent of LINUX (a UNIX-like operating system), the information technology has found a different path than just using Microsoft Windows. This is a more reliable alternative than using the Windows operating system.
"I came out with the first version of ZeroBase at the beginning of 1984, and showed it to Dr. Gugino. He was very surprised, because he had been working with many other professionals to develop a program, but they were unable to accomplish anything. We became close friends and still are today, after working together 18 years."
According to Paul Richardson, SD'72, MEd, associate dean of clinic administration in the School of Dentistry, the ZeroBase program transfers patient data to software, giving outcome in a time frame. "It's a way to input patient data into the software package that can now analyze that patient data and give you an outcome potential. If a child has a certain malformation, given this many months of treatment mechanics, we should achieve this result in this time frame. It can give you pictures of that progression before it occurs, simply because the program stores knowledge.
"It's a very special program. It's very rich in graphics and radiographs," he adds. "It's a large program and has large storage needs. Dr. Dus has acheived an excellent compression ratio. He has a laptop with a six-gig hard drive, with about 3,500 patients in it and 300,000 images.
"We tease him that much of his base code programming is in Italian, so if he doesn't come over here more often, we're stuck! He's a very interesting guy," says Dr. Richardson.
All contents copyright © 2001 Loma Linda University.
All rights reserved. Revised
February 28, 2001
Send comments and questions to webmaster@univ.llu.edu
URL: http://www.llu.edu