Teaching and clinical use of teledentistry in United States orthodontic residency programs
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Abstract
This study examined the current implementation of teleorthodontic teaching and clinical use in United States orthodontic residency programs and sought to identify if there are resident, orthodontic residency program, and/or orthodontic residency program director demographics that are associated with the teaching and clinical use of teleorthodontics. For this study, both the consultative teleorthodontics model in which an orthodontist serves in a consultative role providing remote support to a treating clinician, and the treatment monitoring teleorthodontics model in which an orthodontist directly cares for a patient through remote technology were considered. A 19-question survey, approved by the UMKC IRB, was distributed to orthodontic residency program directors in the continental United States via email. The survey was divided into two domains. The first, focused on residency programs’ current and planned teaching and clinical use of teleorthodontics as well as perceived advantages and disadvantages of incorporating teleorthodontics into the clinical curriculum. The second, focused on program characteristics which might have influenced incorporation of teleorthodontic teaching and use, including number of residents enrolled, program length and location, amount of active child patients, program affiliation, and amount and type of program faculty as well as their experience in teleorthodontics. Descriptive statistics were calculated for all variables from the survey data. To determine any associations between the teaching and/or clinical use of teleorthodontics and all variables, Fisher’s Exact tests were used. Survey data revealed that orthodontic residency programs with 1-2 half-time faculty, defined as providing 2-3 days per week of residency program employment, were significantly less likely to use teleorthodontics clinically than those with more half-time faculty. No other statistically significant associations between residency program characteristics and the teaching or clinical use of teleorthodontics in orthodontic residency programs were identified. Overall, the majority of surveyed orthodontic residency programs are neither teaching teleorthodontics (65%) nor using teleorthodontics clinically (76%) and do not intend to incorporate the teaching (82%) or the clinical use (64%) of teleorthodontics into their curriculum. Results of this study suggest that there is room for growth in the teaching and clinical use of teleorthodontics among orthodontic residency programs in the United States.
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Introduction -- Methods -- Results -- Discussion -- Conclusions
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M.S. (Master of Science)