Abstract
With the availability of oral care services very unevenly distributed in rural or remote areas, underserved people seek oral care from non-dental care providers. Against this backdrop, and coupled with the decreasing cost of and innovations in technology, there is a growing interest in the adoption of telemedicine services. Regardless of the lack of good-quality evidence supporting the cost-effectiveness of telemedicine, evidence already indicates that telemedicine, even with extra costs, helps in reducing the inequalities in the provision of primary health care. Telemedicine has the potential to overcome geographical barriers and contribute to closing the rural-urban healthcare gap in Australia and many other regions. Although research examining different teledentistry applications has found that this technology can be successfully integrated into different settings, there is little active teledentistry practice in Australia. The integration of telemedicine into the mainstream oral health system is a complex and collaborative process in which numerous factors at individual, infrastructure and organisational levels are involved. Addressing the barriers that delay the implementation of a teledentistry service can provide valuable insights into its lack of acceptance and establish an evidence base that can help to inform future decisions about the benefits of teledentistry.
Highlights
With the availability of oral care services very unevenly distributed in rural or remote areas, underserved people seek oral care from non-dental care providers
Teledentistry is a form of telemedicine that is dedicated to dentistry that uses electronic medical records, information and communication technology (ICT) and the internet to provide consultation at a distance[6]
The history of teledentistry can be traced back to the 1990s, when the US Army established the first teledentistry project, Total Dental Access, within the Department of Defense, which enabled the referring general dentists located in a dental clinic at a military base to consult with dental specialists at a distance[9]
Summary
M Estai, E Kruger, M Tennant, S Bunt, Y Kanagasingam School of Anatomy, Physiology and Human Biology, University of Western Australia, Crawley, Western Australia, Australia. Submitted: 11 February 2016; Revised: 26 September 2016; Accepted: 3 October2016; Published: 28 November 2016 Estai M, Kruger E, Tennant M, Bunt S, Kanagasingam Y Challenges in the uptake of telemedicine in dentistry Rural and Remote Health 16: 3915. (Online) 2016 Available: http://www.rrh.org.au
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have