Dental Informatics: An Emerging Discipline

Dental informatics, a young scientific discipline, has immense potential to support dental care. This discipline is undergoing incessant maturation but still most dentists are unaware of what dental informatics is, its goals, its opportunities, challenges and much more. Dental informatics is the application of computer science and information technology to improve dental practice, research, education and management. Dental informatics is producing an increasing number of applications and tools for clinical practice. It presents possible solutions to many longstanding problems in dentistry, but it also faces significant challenges. Devices and applications for dental practice have multiplied tremendously during the last few decades. Many of these innovations can bring significant benefits to clinical practice; therefore dentists must keep up with these developments to ensure adequate patient care.