Poster-board published at 105th AAO Annual Session in San Francisco, CA

We have officially started the effort of defining an informatics standard for orthodontics, and have deadlines! We decided to divulge the news through a scientific posterboard at the biggest orthodontic convention in the world. Software vendors, doctors or anyone interested should know about this project.

Our posterboard got accept before we started to collaborate with the American Dental Association (ADA) Standards Committee for Dental Informatics (SCDI). What this means is that the course of the prject changed quite a bit from when we wrote the initial abstract for the poster until when it was up on display. The title of the project, for instance, probably would have never been PANIO had I been introduced to the ADA SCDI earlier. But we figured PANIO actually sounded pleasing to the ear in all languages, and that we should therefore take advantage of this opportunity and keep the name.

The scientific poster occupies the full 8'x4' provided tackboard. It provides the viewer with a broad perspective of what a software standard is and why it is needed in the field of orthodontics. At it's center there is a description of the ADA SCDI and DICOM structures. This part was influenced by the newly established collaboration with them.

In addition, PANIO: The First Orthodontic Standard (handout) was provided for the more interested. All four sides of the handout were printed on a single Letter size booklet, and provided the reader with a little extra information such as references, more names on collaborators and more detail on the individual working groups.

Abstract

Software standards are becoming increasingly popular in the medical
field, reducing the risk of patient data loss and allowing for greater
patient data interchange. Many medical fields have either already
developed or are currently developing standards like DICOM and ADA
SCDI. Yet there still exists no software standard in the orthodontic
field. Our goal is to develop a public orthodontics software standard,
approved by clinicans, developers and accredited instututions
worldwide. In collaboration with: ADA and DICOM.

Plan: 1) extend DICOM to accommodate all orthodontics data needs. 2)
Include the instructions of the extended DICOM standard in an ADA
Techincal Report; 3) prove the functionality of the standard by writing
a program that directly implements it. The final products (all standard
definitions and the implemented software) are meant to be pucliblicly
available free of charge to facilitate their distribution. We hope our
presentation will stimulate interest among individuals and institutions
to joins us in this project.