Continuous improvement of oral health in Europe

The oral health action programmes of the WHO Regional Office for Europe (WHO/EURO) comply with the overall European Health Policy and targets for the improvement of health in Europe by the year 2000 (HFA2000) and focus on promotive and preventive care approaches primarily at the community level. Various activities, including the development of guidelines for local action projects, have been established to support WHO/EURO's Member States in initiating preventive oral health care system and introducing the concept of continuous quality development in oral health care. The main focus for Countries of Central and Eastern Europe (CCEE) is to formulate national goals for oral health and to further develop oral health services in the region. Collection of national data using agreed European quality indicators for oral health will form the basis of appropriate monitoring and development of technologies to improve oral health care services and the oral health status at large. The WHO/EURO action programmes aim to implement oral disease prevention and health promotion activities. Guidelines have been established to support individual Member States who intend to establish community-based programmes in accordance with scientifically sound principles and methods. The ORATEL Project (Telematic System for Quality Assurance in Oral Health Care) is part of the Commission of European Communities (CEC) strategy for harmonization and standardization in health care (CEC) Programme for advanced informatics in medicine--AIM/CEC) and ORATEL is the only AIM/CEC project related to oral health. The ORATEL Project aims to improve the oral health status in the European Region through use of appropriate computerized information systems. The Project will support management and administration of dental clinics and will be an integral part of a quality assurance system to promote a standardized level of quality in the field. Its advanced educational and decision-support tools can be used by professionals at all levels of the system. ORATEL possesses tools for aggregating and transmitting data upwards for monitoring and evaluation purposes at local, national and supranational administrative levels.