Solving incompatibilities between electronic records for orthodontic patients.

Today, orthodontists should not need to burden their work load with tasks such as figuring out how to send patient information to colleagues or how to share the same patient record across different software programs. In a long-term attempt to lighten these tasks, we are developing a standard for electronic orthodontic patient records to enable a seamless interchange of data between software programs. This article describes a practical proposal that integrates 2 existing standards, HL7 and DICOM, to create a standard for electronic orthodontic patient records.