Informatics futures in dental education and research: quality assurance.

Traditional methods for quality assurance are increasingly being questioned on the grounds of costs and effectiveness. Quality assurance in dentistry has suffered from many of the same problems that have impeded development of the field outside the hospital sector: inadequate data sources, a paucity of broad-based research demonstrating the effects of various treatment approaches on patient outcomes, and a lack of cost-effective methods by which to monitor and evaluate care. Informatics holds considerable promise for dealing with those problems in a comprehensive, reliable and efficient manner. Although a considerable shared commitment on the art of academic dentistry will be needed, the anticipated advantages to be gained in terms of advancing the quality of dental education, research and patient care are substantial. The initiatives being undertaken by the AADS Special Committee on Information Technology are most timely. Parallel informatics efforts are being mounted at the national and international level in numerous health care disciplines. The dental academic community should be prepared to take advantage of the opportunities that the field of informatics is expected to yield in the near future so that it can provide leadership in promoting positive changes within the profession.