News for and about the Internet2 community

[Elizabeth Boten <>]

Dentistry in the cloud update

With one patient-record provider dominating 80% of the US market, a single dental school had slim hopes of finding a solution to meet their evolving patient information needs … until now. A collaboration of academic research centers, government agencies, and industry is preparing to launch the first cloud-based electronic health record for both dental practice and education.

"We realized there was power in numbers," says Dr. Lynn Johnson, professor of dentistry and associate dean for faculty affairs and institutional effectiveness at the University of Michigan School of Dentistry, US. Johnson, together with experts from the schools of dentistry at the University of North Carolina, US, and the University of Pittsburgh, US, have partnered with Internet2 and ICE Health Systems (ICE) to develop a cloud-based electronic health record for dental education and research.

"ICE understands both the education and research missions the system must support," Johnson notes, "and is working closely with Internet2 to ensure that companion products such as business intelligence, digital imaging, and e-prescribing are compatible with the system."

The collaboration has been working diligently on this effort. Having completed a rigorous external security audit they have now produced the profession’s first electronic health record system for dental education delivered entirely in the cloud. The security system, architecture, continuous monitoring and all components have been developed and are being refined through constant communication with the collaboration as well as a growing group of private clinicians.

Progress on the system is substantial with full service functionality to be launched in 2016. As such we are pleased to announce that ICE and the School of Dentistry at the University of Michigan have signed a Customer Agreement that will enable the University to adopt ICE as their Electronic Health Record System. Within the Agreement, ICE has also agreed to a documented Service Level Agreement, a Business Associate's Agreement and annual external security audits. These items were negotiated by Internet2 and the collaboration and will be used to protect and ensure high quality service to all ICE users.

“We are thrilled to be working with this collaboration of universities and Internet2. The collaboration has become a powerful way of communicating requirements and seeing them through the development process. The team at ICE is very much looking forward to launching at the University of Michigan and is grateful for this opportunity,” stated Dr. Mark Genuis, ICE CEO.

In addition to the use of ICE for patient care, the collaboration has created a business intelligence element as well as big data functions that will support clinic operations and research at a whole new level. And by making ICE available via Internet2's NET+ services, the collaboration is broadening the benefits to every school that partners with Internet2. In turn, this could reduce the current 17-year gap between applying research findings to patients.

For more information on The University of Michigan School of Dentistry, visit their website.

About Internet2

Internet2® is a member-owned advanced technology community founded by the nation’s leading higher education institutions in 1996. Internet2 provides a collaborative environment for U.S. research and education organizations to solve common technology challenges, and to develop innovative solutions in support of their educational, research and community service missions.

Internet2 also operates the nation’s largest and fastest, coast-to-coast research and education network, with Internet2 Network Operations Center powered by Indiana University. Internet2 serves more than 90,000 community anchor institutions, 290 U.S. universities, 70 government agencies, 42 regional and state education networks, 84 leading corporations working with our community and more than 65 national research and education networking partners representing more than 100 countries.

Internet2 offices are located in Ann Arbor, MI; Denver, CO; Emeryville, CA; Washington, DC; and West Hartford, CT. For more information, visit www.internet2.edu or follow @Internet2 on Twitter.

About our collaboration

The leadership at Internet2 along with senior personnel from the universities of Michigan, Pittsburgh, North Carolina and Buffalo and ICE Health Systems Inc. established a vision of using advanced technology to improve health by enhancing clinical healthcare, education and research. The collaboration has and continues to guide the development of ICE Health Systems; the collaboration has established a series of priority areas to take maximum advantage of the system. The collaboration is now expanding and welcomes inquiries from new member institutions.

About ICE Health Systems

ICE Health Systems is an innovative Electronic Health Record and Practice Management System whose development has been realized through an active collaboration with a distinguished group of healthcare professionals representing a number of specialties in both university and private clinics. Using cloud technology and undergoing regular external security audits, ICE delivers an easy to use inter-disciplinary practice management and health record  service providing integrated professional communications and continuous system enhancement.

Contacts

, Internet2

, ICE Health Systems

, University of Michigan School of Dentistry