Dental informatics: strategic issues for the dental profession.

The Impact of Leadership and Research on Decision Making.

The past 5 years have been exciting and critical for the dental hygiene profession. It started when ADHA requisitioned an environmental scan that revealed an opportunity to move the profession in a new direction that provide for more leadership opportunities and roles for dental hygienists.1 Subsequent to this scan, the ADHA board of trustees developed a bold and comprehensive strategic plan th...

Defining biomedical informatics competency: the foundations of a profession.

Is biomedical informatics a science or a profession? This question has been asked of many members in the biomedical informatics community, yet we still lack a response that galvanizes our community. We debate the issues over lunch. We create long, multi-threaded e-mail discussions, we write papers on the topic, and still we aren't able to convince ourselves-let alone the rest of the scientific ...

A profession in transition.

Dentistry is a profession in transition. Important economic, demographic and political forces are colliding to reshape the practice environment for America’s dentists. To better understand the potential changes on the horizon, the American Dental Association (ADA) recently carried out a comprehensive, future-oriented analysis of the dental care sector as part of the 2015-2020 strategic plan dev...

Parallels between the Development of the Nurse Practitioner and the Advancement of the Dental Hygienist.

PURPOSE Dental hygienists have often been described as the registered nurses of the dental field. Similar parallels also exist between the development of the nurse practitioner from the nursing profession and the evolution of the dental hygiene practice and profession. This article explores 3 major similarities between the professions of nurse practitioner and dental hygienist. Public health is...

Mercury Amalgam Fillings: Human and Environmental Issues Facing the Dental Profession