بررسی تطبیقی قابلیتهای سیستم پرونده الکترونیک دندانپزشکی تخصصی

Introduction: There are many problems to achieve the adoption of electronic dental record systems. Limited functionalities are one of the most important barriers to the use of electronic dental records. Therefore, this study aimed to identify and compare features and functionalities of specialized electronic dental record systems. Methods: This descriptive-comparative study was conducted in 2016. Using previous published materials, 140 electronic dental record systems from different countries were identified. The websites of these systems were reviewed. The systems without a website or identified as software for general dental clinics were excluded from the study. Finally, 23 specialized electronic dental record systems were included. We developed a checklist based on a literature review. The content validity of the checklist was confirmed by experts. Using this checklist, researcher studied the features and functions of these systems based on the information available in websites and Demo versions of the systems. Descriptive statistics and comparative tables were used for data analysis.  Results: The most common features of the systems were: visiting management (73.9%), drawing different clinical charts (60.9%), tracking financial issues of the office (56.5%), providing reminders for administrative affairs (43.5%), providing various alerts for clinical issues (34.8%), generating various reports (30.4%), tracking the insurance claims electronically (30.4%), capturing patients’ oral images and radiographic studies (26%), and managing the payment and reimbursement processes (23.7%). Conclusion: Lack of attention to features of electronic dental record systems may result in problems in the adoption of such systems by dentists. Developing appropriate functions and features based on the dentists’ needs is a must for software developers to resolve the systems issues and fulfill the administrative and clinical requirements.