Development an Electronic Oral Health Record application for educational dental setting

Worldwide, the adoption of electronic patient recording system is increasing among many parts of the health sectors. Although paper-based recording of patients' information was a routine in many departments of dental schools, easy destruction of collected information and the costs of its conversion to electronic data, limited the availability of updated data at the department of dental public health. This paper aimed to explain the project of designing a system for Electronic Oral Health Recording (EOHR) in Isfahan dental school. The initial testing of system among dental students is reported too.

A situation analysis was conducted among the faculty members and dental students dealing with the Department of Oral Public Health. The content of EOHR was developed based on the WHO STEPwise model for chronic disease surveillance systems. The system was developed as an application for smartphone and a web-based database. The spiral model was applied in software development which was accomplished by the object-oriented programming method. After that, alpha and beta testing were done in target population. Data were compiled during the interview and oral examination by 40 dental students among 200 schoolchildren. It has been stored as a data bank following the network connection. The pitfalls of the system during its usage in dental public health course were evaluated as well.

The baseline analysis of situation generally revealed a perception of need to change the existing paper-based recording system among the dental students and the academic members; it was summarized in five areas as follows: benefits restrictions, structural barriers, perceived advantages and feasibility. The application was designed and completed as six pages interface including demographic and follow-up page, socioeconomic status of family, oral health-related behavior, dental and gingival status, and quality of life. Drawbacks, such as nonresponded items, common assumptions, student registration page on the mobile, and modification in the output Excel file for analysis variables, have been resolved.

A software application and web-based database were designed regarding the characteristics of Agile Unified Process development and educational dental setting. This system should be improved and established gradually.