Delta Dental of Wisconsin awarded $1.1 million to Marshfield Clinic Research Foundation the largest private medical research institute in Wisconsin. The funding to be used for dental research will provide $500,000 towards dental-informatics research, $500,000 will help the oral-and-systemic-health research project, and $100,000 will go towards clinician-initiated dental and craniofacial research through the Delta Dental Oral and Systemic Health Research Initiative.
The dental-informatics research brings computer-based research, biological science, and medical-dental integration down to an individual level. The research will create a dental-health information exchange to incorporate historical medical and dental information and electronic dental-health records.
The oral-and-systemic-health research center focuses on the connection between a healthy mouth and body and on expanding the links between oral health and diabetes, heart disease, and preterm births. The dental and craniofacial research uses the latest molecular and genetic tools to explore health and disease.
The research builds on an earlier Delta Dental-funded project that integrated medical and dental records in a single electronic health record so that a detailed picture of an individual’s whole-body health is now provided.
