Authors: Muhammad Imran Khan Niazi , Sarah Ghafoor

Abstract

The use of technology to facilitate communication and care between patients and dental health care providers at different locations is referred as tele dentistry. It utilises different electronic modalities thus increasing the efficacy of dental clinics by converting traditional paper patient’s records to Electronic Health Records (EHR). These EHR can help in increasing inter-professional communication between clinicians and multidisciplinary management of complex cases. Tele dentistry is a unique way to overcome the geographical barriers by delivering long distance treatment, providing Continuing Education (CE) and training opportunities for dental and non-dental providers. It also has the potential to reduce or eliminate oral health care disparities between different communities. During current COVID-19 pandemic tele dentistry is an effective way to triage high risk patients needing urgent or emergency care thus mitigatingthe risk of the spread of the Coronavirus. Tele dentistry is yet to become integral part of Pakistan dental health care service but it is imperative that dental health care providers actively promote and support the use of tele dentistry

Keywords: Teledentistry, Oral health, Dental, Coronavirus, COVID-19.