Integration of Medical and Dental Care and Patient Data

Amit Acharya, BDS, MS, PhD, is the Executive Director of the Marshfield Clinic Research Institute (MCRI) at Marshfield Clinic Health System (MCHS) in Wisconsin, USA. Dr. Acharya provides leadership and direction to support the mission and vision of the Institute as well as responsible for the oversight of the research operations. He subsequently serves as the Chief Dental Informatics Officer of the Family Health Center at MCHS and as a tenured Research Scientist at the Center for Oral and Systemic Health at MCRI. With over a decade of experience in the field of Health Information Technology, Health Informatics, and Clinical Research, Dr. Acharya is a well-regarded leader in dental informatics. As a general dental surgeon and a computer scientist with expertise in the field of biomedical informatics, Dr. Acharya’s research focus has been in the area of applied clinical informatics focusing on integration of medical and dental data, clinical and research information systems, design and architecture of electronic health records, developing clinical decision supports and investigating the oral-systemic relationship between periodontal and systemic disease such as diabetes, cardiovascular and respiratory diseases. He has served on the 2012 American Medical Informatics Association (AMIA) Scientific Programming Committee (SPC) and many other national committees. He has received multiple grant funding dedicated to bridging the medical and dental divide throughout the course of his career. Dr. Acharya has published over 100 scientific abstracts and manuscripts in national and international peer-reviewed journals and was also one of the editors of the first edition of this book - ‘Integration of Medical and Dental Care and Patient Data’.

Dr. Thankam Thyvalikakath is Director of Dental Informatics Core at the Indiana University School of Dentistry as well as a Research Scientist at the Center for Biomedical Informatics, Regenstrief Institute, Indianapolis, IN. As core director, she has established a program to enhance patient care through improved data capture and retrieval to assess treatment outcomes. Dr. Thyvalikakath earned her PhD degree in Biomedical Informatics from the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine. She also holds a dental degree and certificate in clinical research from the University of Pittsburgh as well as a dental degree from the University of Kerala, India and a Master's degree in Oral & Maxillofacial Surgery from the University of Calicut, India. Dr. Thyvalikakath has served as Principal Investigator, co-investigator or consultant on numerous National Institutes of Health grants. Her research established foundational knowledge on applying user-centered design and cognitive engineering methods to design and evaluate clinical systems. Currently, she is leading a study supported through the National Dental Practice-based Research Network of the NIDCR to explore the feasibility of mining electronic dental records data from Network practices to assess treatment outcomes. In addition, she is co-investigator on a recent NIDCR funded study to implement clinical decision support for tobacco cessation in dental practices. Dr. Thyvalikakath also participates in clinical teaching and practice at the IU School of Dentistry. She has several publications, presentations and guest lectures to her credit and is a peer reviewer for five journals. She served as member of the American Medical Informatics Association (AMIA) task force to develop eligibility requirements for the Advance Health Informatics Certification (AHIC). She is alsoa past chair of the Dental Informatics Work Group at AMIA and Dental Informatics Section at American Dental Educators Association (ADEA). Currently, she serves in the AMIA Working Group Steering Committee (2018-2019) and Scientific Program Committee for the AMIA 2019 Informatics Summit.

Robert H. Posteraro, MD, MBI, FACR, is a Professor and Assistant Program Director in the Master of Science in Healthcare Administration (MSHA) program at Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center–School of Health Professions. Dr. Posteraro graduated Phi Beta Kappa, Magna Cum Laude, in cursu honorum, with a Bachelor of Science degree from Fordham College and earned his MD degree from Yale University School of Medicine. He did a fellowship in chest radiology at Yale, and a fellowship in magnetic resonance imaging at Duke. He earned his Master of Biomedical Informatics degree from Oregon Health & Science University. Prior to joining the MSHA faculty, Dr. Posteraropracticed radiology in both academic and private practice settings. He was Chairman of the Department of Radiology at Texas Tech University HSC School of Medicine. He continues to stay current in radiology and teaches radiation biology, radiation protection, and digital imaging, on a voluntary basis, at the Covenant School of Radiography, in Lubbock, TX. Dr. Posteraro has numerous publications, presentations, and guest lectures to his credit. He has been named Outstanding Faculty Member seven times, by the students in the MSHA program. He is a peer reviewer for three journals and is a member of the American Medical Informatics Association, and the Society for Imaging Informatics in Medicine. His current work is on the use and effects of informatics in distance education and the development of critical thinking skills in students.