As a proactive response to membership needs, the ADA has unveiled its Professional Product Review (PPR), a quarterly newsletter offering dental product evaluations from the profession’s most reliable source.
The inaugural issue of PPR, two years in the making, is packaged with this edition of The Journal of the American Dental Association. All subsequent issues also will arrive with JADA.
In a cover letter accompanying this first PPR, Dr. Bob Brandjord, ADA president, and Dr. James Bramson, executive director, note that the Association has been seeking ways to improve membership access to relevant scientific information.
"We think the ADA Professional Product Review does just that, by providing comprehensive dental product information that is unbiased, scientifically sound, clinically relevant, concise and user-friendly," they write.
Product reviews in this first issue of PPR focus on carbide burs, posterior composite resins and digital radiography systems. Watch for the second issue in October. The schedule for 2007 calls for the PPR to come packaged with JADA in January, April, July and October. Each issue typically will review three dental product categories.
Dr. David C. Sarrett, editor of the PPR, notes that dentists look to their ADA as an authoritative source of scientific information.
"We also hope dentists will notice a refreshing openness in the PPR to information and dialogue," he said, pointing to an online letters-to-the-editor feature that will provide readers "a forum for lively debate and the exchange of views."
The ADA Council on Scientific Affairs developed the PPR to replace the professional products component of the ADA Seal Program, which began a three-year phase out in January 2005.
Through surveys and focus groups, the Council learned that ADA members wanted more information than the voluntary professional product Seal could provide. The Seal of Acceptance for consumer dental products will continue as a service to the public and the profession.
"The new Professional Products Review will set the bar in scientific rigor in evaluating dental products and materials in the United States and worldwide," said Dr. Amid Ismail, who chairs the ADA Council on Scientific Affairs.
Products are selected for the PPR on the recommendations of the more than 1,500 members of the ADA Clinical Evaluator Panel (ACE). The ACE panelists—all of them ADA members volunteering their time—respond to product evaluation surveys and participate in panel discussions or interviews.
ACE members also provide insight to clinical problems they encounter in their own practices. They share clinical tips and techniques, and help develop questions for future product surveys and panels.
Also, through user forums, dentists will try out products and provide input for PPR evaluations. The next ADA Product Evaluation Forum, on high-speed handpieces, is scheduled for Oct. 17–19, during ADA annual session in Las Vegas. Watch for details on the Las Vegas forum in future annual session announcements.
The ADA Council on Scientific Affairs welcomes membership feedback on the PPR. The Council can be reached by e-mail at "pprclinical{at}ada.org".
