Medical care providers' perspectives on dental information needs in electronic health records

Background. The authors conducted this study to identify the most relevant patient dental information in a medical dental integrated electronic health record (iEHR) necessary for medical care providers to inform holistic treatment. Methods. The authors collected input from a diverse sample of 65 participants from a large, regional health system representing 13 medical specialties and administrative units. The authors collected feedback from participants through 11 focus group sessions. Two independent reviewers analyzed focus group transcripts to identify major and minor themes. Results. The authors identified 336 of 385 annotations that most medical care providers coded as relevant. Annotations strongly supporting relevancy to clinical practice aligned with 18 major thematic categories, with the top 6 categories being communication, appointments, system design, medications, treatment plan, and dental alerts. Conclusions. Study participants identified dental data of highest relevance to medical care providers and recommended implementation of user-friendly access to dental data in iEHRs as crucial to holistic care delivery. Practical Implications. Identification of the patients' dental information most relevant to medical care providers will inform strategies for improving the integration of that information into the medical-dental iEHR.