Electronic Dental Record System Cuts Down Waiting

26 March 2011, The Straits Times, Home

It can store patient history, X-rays and laboratory test results.

Patients at the National Dental Centre Singapore (NDCS) can now enjoy better care with the launch of the centre’s new electronic dental record (EDR) system. The EDR, rolled out last month and officially unveiled yesterday, marks a first for a large-scale dental institution in Singapore. It allows patient history, X-rays and laboratory test results to be captured electronically, doing away with the need for bulky folders.

Dr Koh Chu Guan, a senior consultant at NDCS and chairman of the EDR steering committee, said going paperless is especially useful at the centre as patients often see more than one clinician there. He said: “Occasionally, a patient would develop a problem, and staff would then have to scramble for records that were not taken out earlier, resulting in some waiting. Having an electronic system allows the records to always be available.”

The system also makes it easier for NDCS dentists to access the relevant medical records of patients seeking treatment at other SingHealth medical centres. Health Minister Khaw Boon Wan, who viewed a demonstration of the system and toured the other IT-enabled set-ups yesterday, has always pushed for greater use of IT in health care.

He said he was glad that NDCS has “come to a major milestone” after years of effort. He was pleasantly surprised that the project’s budget of $3.7 million was not as big as he had feared.

“So you can see, a few million dollars properly used can bring a lot of benefits,” he said. The entire floor used to house medical documents at the centre will be converted into a geriatric dental clinic. But the greatest beneficiaries are still the patients, who will receive better services and more accurate treatment, wrote Mr Khaw in a blog entry published after the event.

“Less is truly more,” he noted.

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