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Introduction

It is with great pleasure that we introduce the proceedings of the NIDCR/NLM-funded conference "Dental Informatics and Dental Research: Making the Connection" (held in Bethesda, MD, June 12–13, 2003). The main goal of the conference was to promote the integration, collaboration, and synergy of the emerging discipline of dental informatics with dental research in general. As these proceedings show, informatics is (or should be) tightly interwoven with many areas of dental research. We are hoping that these proceedings will serve not only as a snapshot of some of today’s connections between the two areas, but also as a catalyst for strengthening them and developing new ones. The conference goals were as follows:

• identifying areas in dental research that can benefit from the application of existing informatics methods and models;
  
• identifying areas in dental research that would require development of new informatics methods and models;
  
• increasing awareness and knowledge of biomedical informatics among dental researchers;
  
• fostering the development of research collaborations among participants, and among dental informaticians and dental researchers in general;
  
• determining strategies for how dental researchers at all levels of experience can learn most effectively about biomedical informatics and how it can help them in their work; and
  
• disseminating the conference results to the biomedical and the dental and craniofacial research communities at large.
  

While these conference goals were certainly ambitious, the 24 papers in these proceedings illustrate that they have at least partially been reached. The proceedings begin with a definition and discussion of dental informatics within the biomedical informatics realm ("Dental Informatics: An Emerging Biomedical Informatics Discipline"). Applied informatics disciplines—such as dental informatics, nursing informatics, and medical informatics—share an expansive methodological foundation. The continual cross-pollination and collaboration of these disciplines result in significant advances that can be shared across all of biomedicine, as the biomedical informatics community has proved since its inception. The next two papers address the specific challenges for dental informatics research. "Dental informatics: A Work in Progress" does so by examining the progress since the publication of a comprehensive research agenda for the field in 1992. "Grand Challenges in Dental Informatics" extrapolates research goals from a predominantly clinical viewpoint. A preliminary analysis of the dental informatics literature in the next paper concludes the introductory focus on dental informatics as a discipline.

The next four papers, beginning with "Defining Biomedical Informatics Competency: The Foundations of a Profession", discuss education in biomedical informatics, with an emphasis on how dental researchers can learn about the field. The first paper in that section discusses the structure and content of a prototypical biomedical informatics curriculum. Following that, "Biomedical Informatics Training for Dental Researchers" and "Issues and Strategies for Faculty Development" focus on exposing faculty to biomedical informatics concepts. Since it is difficult for most dental researchers to gain in-depth expertise in informatics, it is important that they be able to recognize informatics implications in their work and consult appropriate specialists when necessary. The last paper, "Adaptive Hypermedia: A New Paradigm for Educational Software", highlights the application of a new approach for designing educational software which is currently being tested in dental education.

The remaining papers in the proceedings describe informatics applications and implications in various areas of dental research. While the conference organized the corresponding presentations into the neat tracks of "Basic research in dentistry", "Clinical research in dentistry", and "Behavioral and public health research", it is clear from these papers that this classification is largely artificial. As the need for integrating data across the molecular/cellular, tissue/organ, individual (patient) and population levels increases, the traditional boundaries between research disciplines begin to blur. Informatics can provide the important "glue" for multidisciplinary and complex research problems. For this philosophy to succeed, however, informatics must be seen as a common field that cuts across all research domains, not a collection of insular specializations in the service of a particular research area.

The proceedings may capture the content of the conference relatively well, but they cannot convey the intense personal interaction and discussions that took place among conference participants. Ultimately, this interaction may be more important than the publication. The dental informatics community is small and highly distributed. In order to mature, it must be closely integrated with the dental and biomedical research enterprise. It must also achieve the cohesiveness, motivation, and resources to address the significant research challenges that lie ahead.

So, how do we keep the spirit of the conference alive? While it may be nice to think about periodically repeating such an event, this may not be possible because of financial, logistical, and other resource constraints. We are currently pursuing the idea of establishing a "virtual community" of dental informaticians and interested stakeholders worldwide. This community will serve as a place to meet like-minded colleagues, search for collaborators, locate ongoing informatics projects, and access a comprehensive set of resources in dental informatics, such as literature databases, research instruments, and research results. This community would also serve as an access point for researchers who are looking for informatics expertise in dentistry. Since we are continuously looking for contributors, collaborators, and other stakeholders for this project, please let us know if you are interested.

This introduction would not be complete without acknowledging the significant contributions that made this conference possible. Primary and significant monetary support was provided by the National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research and by the National Library of Medicine. Several other organizations—such as the American Association for Dental Research, the American Dental Association, the American Dental Education Association, the American Medical Informatics Association, the Center for Dental Informatics at the University of Pittsburgh, the University of Michigan School of Dentistry, and the UTHSCSA-Dental School—contributed funds. We thank Software of Excellence International, Ltd. (Auckland, New Zealand), for the partial sponsorship of the proceedings. The efforts and commitment of the program committee—consisting of Patricia Anderson (University of Michigan), William Bartling (University of Pittsburgh), Patricia Corby (University of Pittsburgh), Charles Friedman (University of Pittsburgh), Marjorie Jeffcoat (University of Pennsylvania), Sally Marshall (University of California, San Francisco), Titus Schleyer (University of Pittsburgh), Heiko Spallek (University of Pittsburgh), Robert Weyant (University of Pittsburgh), and John Zimmerman (Columbia University)—contributed significantly to the success of this conference. Last, the staff at the Center for Dental Informatics, especially Ms. Andrea Hyde, was crucial in organizing and running an exceptional event.

We wish you a pleasant and productive reading of these proceedings!

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