The ORATEL project. Telematic system for quality assurance in oral health care.

ORATEL is a 3-year project of which WHO/EURO is prime partner and which is partially supported financially by the Advanced Informatics in Medicine programme of the Commission of the Europe Communities. ORATEL has the ultimate objective of improving oral health through use of appropriate telematic information tools for quality assurance and development. These tools have the potential to promote quality assurance in oral health care by using common quality indicator standards which allow for comparison of outcome and resource utilization. The project has completed its first phase. The main challenge of this Phase I was to develop and reach European consensus on indicators for quality in oral health care. Based on the Phase I activities, a manual on the basic minimum set of indicators for quality in oral health care was prepared. Phase II covered development of the three telematic information tools and the preparation of a technical manual. Phase III is testing and evaluation of the tools started in February 1994 and is taking place during.