Health Informatics in Kenya and implications to dental practice

Objectives: (i) Present opportunities for collaboration between the Kenya Health Informatics Association (KeHIA) and the Kenya Dental Association (KDA) on the inclusion of dentistry and oral health research agenda among the priority domains in electronic Health (eHealth) in Kenya.
(ii) To describe the HI infrastructure in Kenya and how electronic systems that support dental care can be made interoperable with other primary care systems through health information exchange protocols and standards that are currently defined in the Kenya eHealth Strategy.
Methods: Descriptive study on the status of health informatics in Kenya and review of literature
Results: In 2013, N.J. Knotts reported in the British Dental Journal that advances in ICT in primary healthcare have not been similarly applied in dentistry. He concluded that dentistry has been left in the hands of unregulated internet service providers (ISPs) and software engineers. This observation sums up the state of HI in the delivery of dental care and oral health research in Kenya.The benefits, which have been documented in published literature, include referrals (moving a patient with his/her treatment history), tele-radiology (image sharing between clinicians), management of chronic or recurring conditions, co-infections, and support for oral health research.
Conclusions: There is need to highlight the importance of dental informatics in Kenya and to prioritize the role in the Kenya eHealth space