The ADA Forsyth Institute has selected PDS Health Technologies™ to implement its dental-optimized instance of the Epic® electronic health record platform at Forsyth Faculty Associates, the organization’s in-house dental clinic.
Forsyth Faculty Associates serves as the hub for its Center for Clinical and Translational Research and as the base for its community dentistry programs. The clinic provides a connection between the institute’s scientific research activities and patient care.
According to the organization, Epic will strengthen medical-dental integration by supporting interoperability across its clinical and research environments. ADA Forsyth said the platform will provide a more complete view of patient health information, improve care coordination across care settings, and support long-term operational growth.
“We are ‘walking the walk’ on medical-dental integration by implementing Epic, a platform optimized for integrating dental and overall health,” said Wenyuan Shi, PhD, CEO of ADA Forsyth. “This work will help strengthen patient care at Forsyth Faculty Associates while also supporting our mission to advance oral health, overall health and evidence-based innovation.”
According to ADA Forsyth, the Epic Cosmos database will provide clinician-scientists with access to more than 300 million unique de-identified patient records and more than 16 billion encounters from participating health systems. The organization said this resource will allow researchers to examine outcomes and patterns of care on a scale that would be difficult to achieve within a single institution.
“Evidence-based dentistry and meta-analysis remain essential to synthesizing the strongest published science into clear clinical guidance,” said Ben Wu, DDS, PhD, chief scientific officer and chief operating officer at ADA Forsyth. “Epic Cosmos adds another important dimension by allowing us to examine real-world patterns, care pathways, and outcomes drawn from everyday clinical practice, in nearly real time. We can find signals before they appear in publications or systematic reviews. This capability is highly synergistic with ADA Forsyth’s rich tradition in foundational and translational science.”
According to the organization, the Epic platform will also support efforts to expand access to care by strengthening technology infrastructure, reducing administrative hurdles and supporting clinical operations. ADA Forsyth noted that oral health has been linked to systemic conditions including diabetes, heart disease and Alzheimer’s disease, and that integrating dental and medical care can support earlier identification of health risks, more comprehensive treatment planning and coordinated care.
The collaboration extends beyond the electronic health record platform. According to the announcement, PDS Health Technologies will provide operational consulting, integrated imaging workflows, financing technologies and revenue cycle management services. Patients will also have access to MyChart, Epic’s patient portal, allowing them to access dental information through the same digital tools they may already use for medical care.
“We are proud to support ADA Forsyth with a partnership that goes beyond electronic health records alone,” said Preston Raulerson, president of PDS Health Technologies. “By combining our dental-optimized instance of Epic with operational support, revenue cycle management, imaging and financial technologies, this engagement creates an incredible foundation for sustainable, high quality, high performance integrated care. Pairing that with ADA Forsyth’s clinical and scientific leadership, we have a unique opportunity to make industry-wide impact on oral health even as we simultaneously improve organization-level performance.”
Founded in 1910 as the Forsyth Dental Infirmary for Children, ADA Forsyth Institute became part of the American Dental Association in 2023 and continues to focus on dental and craniofacial research, oral-systemic health connections and oral health innovation. PDS Health Technologies provides health technology, revenue cycle services, consulting and operations management for dental and medical organizations, while PDS Health supports dental, dental specialty and medical providers through integrated healthcare services across the United States.
