Teleradiology for dentistry.

As the world enters the "telecosm," the importance of rapid information transfer will grow. It is not unusual for the average American to have a beeper on his or her belt, a cellular telephone in the car, a telephone with remote access answering machine, voice mail, call forwarding, a home fax, and a personal computer networked with a commercial purchasing and information retrieval service such as CompuServe or Prodigy. Conventional cellular telephones, introduced in 1983, numbered approximately 6.4 million in the United States by January, 1992. This is a measure of the importance placed on rapid interpersonal communication. Undoubtedly, patients will begin to expect at least the same degree of efficiency in communications on the part of health care providers, including dentists. There are great potentials for expediting prior approval and reducing costs for dental care as dentists obtain new, lower-priced, direct digital imaging systems, especially as ISDN and electronic mail systems become more available and less costly. It should be possible to reduce insurance costs by minimizing the numbers of clerical staff needed to open, check, and return submitted radiographs. Centralized diagnostic centers for second or expert opinions both for the dental profession and for the insurance carriers are additional pluses. There are potential savings in mailing costs and in reducing travel required of the patient living in a remote region to obtain a second opinion. Transmission using commercially available access to Internet/NSFNET is already possible for a small monthly fee. Nothing, other than a basic personal computer with graphics capabilities, is needed to transmit and receive files once the image is in a digital form. Electronic imaging and image transmission are here.