Updated: Aug 26, 1998
This is the most recent structured information on this project. Complementary data can be found on previous documents
ORQUEST Oral Health quality enhancement telematics system using an IT&T supported dentist unit

Overview

1. absence of knowledge on own performance in relation to quality goals;
2. absence of decision support tools for adequate clinical patient management;
3. lack of adequate means for patient information;
4. deficiencies in the communication between dentists and dental technicians;
5. lack of adequate data and information needed by third party payers as well as local, regional and national policy makers, to optimize the OHC system with regard to quality and cost-effectiveness of the care delivered.

The ORQUEST-system covers three main areas:

1. Chairside support to the dental team. This includes a proactive multimedia-based, interactive electronic dental patient record system, helping the dentist to avoid actions which reduce quality (e.g. diagnosis from radiographs of poor quality), assuring that all data required for evaluation are registered, and saving staff time, because the dentist can dictate input data directly to the system. It further includes teleconferencing and teleoperating facilities for expert assisted diagnosis and treatment of oral mucosal lesions and interpretation of oral radiographs as well as for enhanced collaboration between dentists and dental technicians.
2. Patient information. Cost-effectiveness of OHC delivery is highly dependent on the patient willingness to co-operate. This requires that patients understand their oral health situation, are motivated to achieve the goals of a treatment plan, and fully participate in the maintenance of their oral health. The ORQUEST TS provides innovative IT&T-tools for enhancing patients' involvement in the "treatment contract".
3. Retrospective evaluation of the care delivered. ORQUEST TS enables both clinical evaluation and aggregated quality assurance surveys at local, regional, and national levels. Most important, it enables EU wide exchange of information, especially evaluative information, on QA and development in OHC.

• ORQUEST-PRODRS, a Proactive Dental Record System, including a modified version of ORATEL-DENTREC as well as advanced image database management facilities.
• ORQUEST-QUASIMOR, a support system for Quality Assessment and Improvement of Oral Radiographs.
• ORQUEST-TELEDECS, a multimedia-based Telematic Decision Support System for diagnosis and treatment related quality assurance in oral health care.
• ORQUEST-LABCOM, an interactive telematic support for improved Dentist-Dental Laboratory Communication.
• ORQUEST-PATEDU, a multimedia based system for Patient Education, Information and Motivation.
• ORQUEST-REVAL-NETWORK, a network for Retrospective Evaluation of the quality of delivered oral health care.

ORQUEST-Objective 1:	Deliverables	D06.02, ORQUEST-PRODRS
		D06.14, ORQUEST-REVAL-Network
		D08.02, ORQUEST-IT&T
ORQUEST-Objective 2:	Deliverables	D06.04, ORQUEST-QUASIMOR-Basic
		D06.06, ORQUEST-QUASIMOR-DIOR
		D06.08, ORQUEST-TELEDECS
		D08.02, ORQUEST-IT&T
ORQUEST-Objective 3:	Deliverables D06.12, ORQUEST-PATEDU
		D08.02, ORQUEST-IT&T
ORQUEST-Objective 4:	Deliverables	D06.10, ORQUEST-LABCOM
		D08.02, ORQUEST-IT&T
ORQUEST-Objective 5:	Deliverables	D06.02, ORQUEST-PRODRS
		D06.14, ORQUEST-REVAL-Network
		D08.02, ORQUEST-IT&T

Purpose and objectives

Results

ORQUEST TS consists of four main elements:

1. an integrated chairside telematics platform,
2. IT&T-support for diagnosis, treatment and clinical management
3. a patient education and information tool and
4. an evaluation system for monitoring international dental quality development.

The second ORQUEST element consists of four modules supporting diagnosis, treatment and clinical management, ORQUEST-PRODRS, ORQUEST-QUASIMOR, ORQUEST-TELEDECS, and ORQUEST-LABCOM, listed above.

The third ORQUEST element is a patient education and information tool that can be used at chairside being linked to the basic module and operated on the same hardware platform. In addition the patient information tool can be purchased as an individual portable system to be used separately from the other modules.

The REVAL network retrospective evaluation system is operated in the background and provides health care authorities and providers with global statistics. The REVAL module will be implemented into each core module for data collection and transfer to the local REVAL nodes. The network version of REVAL can be purchased separately for those organisations and authorities who are solely interested in the data collection.

The modularity of ORQUEST TS and the fact that the elements can be used separately as well as combined allow for opening the market for telematics and multimedia products in dentistry to be used chairside and not only for administrative tasks like today. Introducing ORQUEST into the daily work in clinics and practices will slowly change the way of working and the overall organisation of the practice. This will not happen instantly by using telematics in dentistry, but it will be an incremental process requiring only moderate initial investment. At the same time a whole new market for chairside telematics products will be opened for the supply industry.

The move from the prototype to the final product following the end of the demonstration phase will be in the responsibility of the industrial partners. Design changes for series production have to be made. Further work has to be done for translating the various modules into languages other then those already used to make it acceptable in all parts of Europe. Finally stand-alone version of all modules will be developed to allow for even wider dissemination of the results of ORQUEST.

DISSEMINATION STRATEGY OF THE PROJECT

PRELIMINARY BUSINESS PLAN IDEAS

List of deliverables

List of participants

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