Integration of oral health into EHRs called for by FDI World Dental Federation – HTN Health Tech News

A consensus statement issued by the FDI World Dental Federation has called for the global integration of oral health into EHRs, with the FDI’s president Greg Chadwick highlighting that although oral health indicators are “often excluded”, integrating them into EHRs can “significantly improve diagnoses, treatment coordination, medication management and patient outcomes, while also strengthening inter-professional collaboration”.

The statement identifies eight key oral health indicators recommended for inclusion: periodontal disease, caries, oral cancer screenings, oral health status, medical devices and implants information, prescription data, allergy information, and radiographic imaging.

It also highlights ten “key advantages” around the integration of medical and dental EHRs, focusing on the more holistic view of a patient offered by the integration of available information, a “more coordinated, informed, and safer approach to medication management”, and opportunities for enhanced disease surveillance for global public health.

Integration would also help toward achieving the “Whole Health Home” concept, the statement notes, building a “team-based, inter-professional approach” to promoting wellbeing and preventing disease. Linking health records to personal devices could further improve monitoring and management capabilities, it continues, with the introduction of devices such as bluetooth toothbrushes and monitors of physical activity or diet ensuring “healthcare providers have all the necessary information to make informed, shared decisions regarding patient care”.

The statement also outlines steps to be taken toward integration, such as establishing best practices for incorporating oral health indicators into existing EHR frameworks, piloting integrated EHR systems, enhancing stakeholder engagement and training, collaborating with regulatory bodies to ensure data protection, and establishing sustainable funding models. There is also the potential, it states, to leverage integrated EHRs to “promote data-driven decision-making, artificial intelligence applications, and public health surveillance”. To read the report in full, please click here.

Insights on EHRs from across health and care

For a recent HTN Now panel discussion on the topic of managing EHR complexity, we were joined by Paul Charnley, former CIO and chair of the NHS Blueprinting Programme, and Mike Hardman, principal engineer and EPR technology lead at Aire Logic, who shared some of their insight and experience on overcoming challenges around EHR design and implementation. Mike took us through some of the challenges around EHR complexity, saying, “the EHR is an extremely important and high pressure piece of technology – it’s touched on by nearly every function and used at every stage of treatment, as well as offering that access to records which is foundational to providing good care. It’s integral it’s delivered in a timely and accurate manner.”

Cambridge University Hospitals NHS FT has introduced a tool for EHR data to be transferred to research databases or electronic data capture software for use in clinical trials, in a move the trust hopes will allow researchers to spend “more time on clinical research rather than data entry”. The Archer platform reportedly allows “large volumes of data” to be integrated from EHRs, “transferring several hundred data points per patient, efficiently and securely”. It is also said to have been piloted successfully at University College London Hospitals and Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center.

Join HTN and panel of experts for a HTN Now panel discussion on the approaches to optimising and adding value to EPRs, taking place 23 April  2025 10:00 – 11:00.