Better informed in clinical practice – a brief overview of dental informatics

Analysis of Deep Learning Techniques for Dental Informatics: A Systematic Literature Review

Within the ever-growing healthcare industry, dental informatics is a burgeoning field of study. One of the major obstacles to the health care system’s transformation is obtaining knowledge and insightful data from complex, high-dimensional, and diverse sources. Modern biomedical research, for instance, has seen an increase in the use of complex, heterogeneous, poorly documented, and generally unstructured electronic health records, imaging, sensor data, and text. There were still certain restrictions even after many current techniques were used to extract more robust and useful elements from the data for analysis. New effective paradigms for building end-to-end learning models from complex data are provided by the most recent deep learning technology breakthroughs. Therefore, the current study aims to examine the most recent research on the use of deep learning techniques for dental informatics problems and recommend creating comprehensive and meaningful interpretable structures that might benefit the healthcare industry. We also draw attention to some drawbacks and the need for better technique development and provide new perspectives about this exciting new development in the field.

Dental Education Required for the Changing Health Care Environment

To be able to meet the demands for care in 2040, dental graduates will need to address challenges resulting from the rapidly changing health care environment with knowledge and sets of skills to build on current standards and adapt to the future. The purposes of this article are to 1) analyze key challenges likely to evolve considerably between now and 2040 that will impact dental education and practice and 2) propose several sets of skills and educational outcomes necessary to address these challenges. The challenges discussed include changes in prevalence of oral diseases, dental practice patterns, materials and technologies, integrated medical-dental care, role of electronic health records, cultural competence, integrated curricula, interprofessional education, specialty-general balance, and web/cloud-based collaborations. To meet these challenges, the dental graduate will need skills such as core knowledge in basic and clinical dentistry, technical proficiency, critical thinking skills for lifelong learning, ethical and professional values, ability to manage a practice, social responsibility, and ability to function in a collegial intra- and interprofessional setting. Beyond the skills of the individual dentist will be the need for leadership in academia and the practice community. Academic and professional leaders will need to engage key constituencies to develop strategic directions and agendas with all parties pointed toward high standards for individual patients and the public at large. This article was written as part of the project "Advancing Dental Education in the 21^st Century."