[Selection criteria for dental software]

Dentists who wish to introduce a computer based patient record system in their office are confronted with a lack of information concerning the selection of dental software. As wishes and demands concerning the content and options given by a dental computer program can vary widely from dentist to dentist and as dental software is changing rapidly a global objective evaluation is of no practical validity. Therefore a list of general and specific selection criteria was developed, enabling the practitioner to make a personal, objective comparison of quality of content versus wishes, price and service of different dental software programs. The criteria are discussed in this article.