Dental Data Exchange Project seeking partners for testing interoperability implementation guides

ADA working in partnership with Health Level Seven International to develop dental content of standards, while HL7 provides technical elements

The Dental Data Exchange Project is hosting a virtual informational session on Dec. 12 from 1-2 p.m. Eastern time that will include a presentation from the CareQuest Institute for Oral Health on the value of improved dental information exchange.

In addition, the project is seeking vendor partners to participate in the piloting of the  HL7 CDA and FHIR Dental Data Exchange implementation guides, with testing to occur in September 2023.

The Dental Data Exchange Project is an initiative within Health Level Seven International, a nonprofit American National Standards Institute-accredited organization that develops standards for global health data interoperability.

The implementation guides are designed to facilitate care coordination and create best practices for electronic exchange of patient data between dental and medical professionals.

The Dental Data Exchange Project leveraged the ADA's ANSI/ADA Standard No. 1084: Reference Core Data Set for Communication Among Dental and Other Health Information Systems as the foundation for the technical specifications in both standards.

Participation is open to all but the target audience for participation includes dental and medical health record vendors, clearinghouses, payers, health information exchanges, health systems, dental support organizations and technology leaders from dental practices.

The ADA is working in partnership with Health Level Seven International, and has formally partnered with HL7 for many years, developing the dental content of standards, while HL7 provides the technical elements.

The ADA serves as an interested party and subject matter expert in this project. The ADA helped develop these guides in hope that they will improve the sharing of patient health information between dental and medical providers.

Inquiries should be sent to Rebekah Fiehn, director, Coding and Dental Data Exchange of the ADA Practice Institute, at fiehnr@ada.org .