Data acquisition and analysis: how retrospective data helps to generate insights for patient treatment

Implant dentistry is complex and dental implant complications are expensive but also they are multifactorial so are hard to predict. The current literature on dental implants is driven by controlled studies and related systematic reviews which do not model the complex multifactorial environment of dental implant treatment in private practice.

New implant designs and new procedures can all affect success but large scale- long term outcomes of these innovations in private practice is lacking.  This presentation introduces the concept of data driven decision based on large scale - long term retrospective analysis. This presentation introduces a world wide database system that is secure and can be used by all implant clinicians to track their own outcomes.  The database may also be pooled to achieve large scale outcomes analysis not feasible in any single clinic or University setting.   Large scale data will revolutionize how we  treatment plan in implant therapy by real time data driven decision making. 

Learning  Objectives:

• Understand the value of data in evaluating your own implant success and failure to help with your treatment protocol decision making.
• Learn how you can assess your own success rate with various protocols against a world wide benchmark and determine if you want to change protocols.
• Understand the value of data in evaluating new implant designs and procedures,  also known as  post market analysis. 
• Understand the implant research “blind spot” of real world clinical outcomes versus controlled trials, which leaves you exposed to risk by clinical experimentation on your patients.