Professor Heiko Spallek
Professor Heiko Spallek serves as Head of School and Dean at The University of Sydney School of Dentistry where he works closely with the Faculty of Medicine and Health's (FMH) leadership to promote interprofessional education and research across the FMH schools. Additionally, he was appointed Academic Lead Digital Health and Health Service Informatics for FMH.
Professor Spallek’s research projects have a foundation in the fields of education, usability engineering, medical and dental informatics and computer science. He has published more than 90 peer-reviewed papers and a textbook for Dental Informatics (published in Germany and the US).
Adoption of Evidence-Based Medicine: Professor Spallek served as PI of several NIH-supported research projects aiming to improve the adoption of Evidence-Based Dentistry, such as "A Clinic-Randomized Trial of a Clinical Decision Support System to Improve Dental Provider Delivery of Brief Tobacco Interventions and Quitline Referrals" (NIH: 1U01DE026135-01: US$2.4m). As principal investigator he received a US$900,000 federal contract from the National Institutes on Drug Abuse to develop a “Center of Excellence in Pain Education: Pain Challenges in Primary Care.”
Using Health Information Technology (HIT) to connect oral and systemic health: Professor Spallek’s informatics research has always been related to improving the translation of research findings from “bench to bedside.” Specifically, he focussed on the lack of connection between dental and medical Electronic Health Record (EHR) systems, depriving dentists from the rich information stored in medical records and physicians from learning about the oral health status of their patients. The long-term goal of his research is to promote the meaningful integration of information derived from medical EHRs into dental EHRs to provide point-of-care clinical decision support.
Professor Spallek is a member of the Scientific Advisory Committee for Dentroid Technologies.
Professor Spallek is strongly vested in the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL) exemplified by activities ranging from the creation of instructional videos, peer-reviewed MedEdPORTAL contributions, learning outcomes assessments to mentoring other faculty in the SoTL.
While at the University of Pittsburgh, he collaborated with Dr. Weiner, successfully proposing a federal contract to use virtual cases for Interprofessional Education. As Co-Director of the resulting NIH Pain Consortium sponsored Center of Excellence in Pain Education (CoEPE), he facilitated the collaboration of 21 interdisciplinary faculty members from six health sciences schools at two US universities and development of six interprofessional, web-based educational modules. The module Chronic Low Back Pain in Older Adults has been shown to improve the performance of medical students in OSCEs. NIH featured these outcomes in a press release.
Professor Spallek continues to collaborate in research projects in the US, ranging from patient safety in dentistry to quality improvement in dental care to the reduction in antibiotic prescriptions by dentists.
American Dental Education Association
International Association for Dental Research
Australian Dental Association
Professor Spallek holds Fellowships in the Australasian Institute of Digital Health, the American College of Dentists and International College of Dentists. He is an Honorary Visiting Professor at Osaka Dental University, Japan.
(University of Bonn) Implementing interoperability of electronic health records for dentists and physicians | |
(HealthPartners Institute, Minneapolis) A Clinic-Randomized Trial of a Clinical Decision Support System to Improve Dental Provider Delivery of Brief Tobacco Interventions and Quitline Referrals | |
(University of Michigan) Development of a cloud-based electronic health record for dentistry | |
(University of Pittsburgh) Center of Excellence in Pain Education: Pain Challenges in Primary Care |
Publications
Book Chapters
- Carrasco-Labra, A., Urquhart, O., Spallek, H. (2021). Machine learning in evidence synthesis research. Machine Learning in Dentistry, (pp. 147-161). United Kingdom: Springer International Publishing. [More Information]
- Balasubramanian, M., Giraudeau, N., Spallek, H., Badenier, O., Marino, R. (2018). Licensing, Regulation, and International Movement of Oral Health Professionals (OHPS). In Rodrigo J. Marino, Michael V. Morgan, A. Damien Walmsley (Eds.), Career Paths in Oral Health, (pp. 21-35). Cham: Springer International Publishing. [More Information]
Journals
- Kalenderian, E., Zouaidi, K., Yeager, J., Urata, J., Yansane, A., Tokede, B., Rindal, D., Spallek, H., White, J., Walji, M. (2024). Learning from data in dentistry: Summary of the third annual OpenWide conference. Learning Health Systems, 8(2). [More Information]
- Woodfield, P., Zuaiter, O., Habeb, A., Hirst, T., Rapp, L., Rode, A., Dao, D., Dau, V., Madden, S., Walsh, L., Spallek, H., et al (2024). Optical penetration models for practical prediction of femtosecond laser ablation of dental hard tissue. Lasers in Surgery And Medicine, 56(4), 371-381. [More Information]
- Kalenderian, E., Tungare, S., Mehta, U., Hamid, S., Mungia, R., Yansane, A., Holmes, D., Funkhouser, K., Ibarra-Noriega, A., Urata, J., Spallek, H., et al (2024). Patient and dentist perspectives on collecting patient reported outcomes after painful dental procedures in the National Dental PBRN. BMC Oral Health, 24(1). [More Information]
Conferences
- Butler, B., Sharma, N., Irwin, J., Spallek, H. (2010). "You Are Not Alone": Effects of Highlighting Social Aspects on Responsiveness, Joining, and Profile Information Sharing in an Information Portal. Annual Meeting of the Association for Information Science and Technology, Silver Spring: Association for Information Science and Technology. [More Information]
- Bekhuis, T., Kreinacke, M., Spallek, H., Song, M. (2010). Using the Natural Language Toolkit to Reduce the Number of Messages for In-depth Content Analyses: A Case Study. American Medical Informatics Association Annual Symposium 2010, Bethesda: American Medical Informatics Association.
Other
- Holden, A., Shaban, R., Spallek, H. (2020), COVID-19 and the Dental Profession: Professional Tensions and Ethical Quandaries.
2024
- Kalenderian, E., Zouaidi, K., Yeager, J., Urata, J., Yansane, A., Tokede, B., Rindal, D., Spallek, H., White, J., Walji, M. (2024). Learning from data in dentistry: Summary of the third annual OpenWide conference. Learning Health Systems, 8(2). [More Information]
- Woodfield, P., Zuaiter, O., Habeb, A., Hirst, T., Rapp, L., Rode, A., Dao, D., Dau, V., Madden, S., Walsh, L., Spallek, H., et al (2024). Optical penetration models for practical prediction of femtosecond laser ablation of dental hard tissue. Lasers in Surgery And Medicine, 56(4), 371-381. [More Information]
- Kalenderian, E., Tungare, S., Mehta, U., Hamid, S., Mungia, R., Yansane, A., Holmes, D., Funkhouser, K., Ibarra-Noriega, A., Urata, J., Spallek, H., et al (2024). Patient and dentist perspectives on collecting patient reported outcomes after painful dental procedures in the National Dental PBRN. BMC Oral Health, 24(1). [More Information]
2023
- Waters, E., Leadbeatter, D., Spallek, H. (2023). AI’s other challenges. British Dental Journal, 234(6), 359. [More Information]
- Kalenderian, E., Kookal, K., Ibarra-Noriega, A., Tungare, S., Tokede, O., Spallek, H., White, J., Walji, M., Bangar, S., Yansane, A., et al (2023). Identifying Contributing Factors Associated With Dental Adverse Events Through a Pragmatic Electronic Health Record-Based Root Cause Analysis. Journal of Patient Safety, 19(5), 305-312. [More Information]
- Rapp, L., Madden, S., Brand, J., Maximova, K., Walsh, L., Spallek, H., Zuaiter, O., Habeb, A., Hirst, T., Rode, A. (2023). Investigation of laser wavelength effect on the ablation of enamel and dentin using femtosecond laser pulses. Scientific Reports, 13(1). [More Information]
2022
- Rapp, L., Madden, S., Rode, A., Walsh, L., Spallek, H., et al (2022). Anesthetic-, irrigation- and pain-free dentistry? The case for a femtosecond laser enabled intraoral robotic device. Frontiers in Dental Medicine, 3. [More Information]
- Walji, M., Spallek, H., Kookal, K., Barrow, J., Magnuson, B., Tiwari, T., Oyoyo, U., Brandt, M., Howe, B., Anderson, G., et al (2022). BigMouth: development and maintenance of a successful dental data repository. Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association, 29(4), 701-706. [More Information]
- Rapp, L., Madden, S., Brand, J., Walsh, L., Spallek, H., Zuaiter, O., Habeb, A., Hirst, T., Rode, A. (2022). Femtosecond laser dentistry for precise and efficient cavity preparation in teeth. Biomedical Optics Express, 13(9), 4559-4571. [More Information]
2021
- Skinner, J., Dimitropoulos, Y., Sohn, W., Holden, A., Rambaldini, B., Spallek, H., Ummer-Christian, R., Marshall, S., Raymond, K., Calma Ao, T., Gwynne, K. (2021). Child Fluoride Varnish Programs Implementation: A Consensus Workshop and Actions to Increase Scale-Up in Australia. Healthcare, 9(8), 1029. [More Information]
- Carrasco-Labra, A., Urquhart, O., Spallek, H. (2021). Machine learning in evidence synthesis research. Machine Learning in Dentistry, (pp. 147-161). United Kingdom: Springer International Publishing. [More Information]
- Chen, R., Santo, K., Wong, G., Sohn, W., Spallek, H., Chow, C., Irving, M. (2021). Mobile Apps for Dental Caries Prevention: Systematic Search and Quality Evaluation. JMIR mHealth and uHealth, 9(1), e19958. [More Information]
2020
- Holden, A., Shaban, R., Spallek, H. (2020), COVID-19 and the Dental Profession: Professional Tensions and Ethical Quandaries.
- Johnson, K., Schmidt, A., Bader, J., Spallek, H., Rindal, D., Enstad, C., Fricton, J., Asche, S., Kane, S., Thirumalai, V., Spallek, H., et al (2020). Dental Decision Simulation (DDSim): Development of a virtual training environment. Journal of Dental Education, 84(11), 1284-1293. [More Information]
- Fontana, M., Carrasco-Labra, A., Spallek, H., Eckert, G., Katz, B. (2020). Improving Caries Risk Prediction Modeling: A Call for Action. Journal of Dental Research, 99(11), 1215-1220. [More Information]
2019
- Shaw, T., Janssen, A., Crampton, R., O'Leary, F., Hoyle, P., Jones, A., Shetty, A., Gunja, N., Ritchie, A., Spallek, H., Solman, A., Kay, J., Makeham, M., et al (2019). Attitudes of health professionals to using routinely collected clinical data for performance feedback and personalised professional development. Medical Journal of Australia, 210(S6), S17-S21. [More Information]
- Johnson, L., Callaghan, C., Balasubramanian, M., Haq, H., Spallek, H. (2019). Cost Comparison of an On-Premise IT Solution with a Cloud-Based Solution for Electronic Health Records in a Dental School Clinic. Journal of Dental Education, 83(8), 895-903. [More Information]
- Holden, A., Gibson, B., Spallek, H. (2019). Embarrassing Realities: the Portrayal of Dentistry in Reality TV 'Dentertainment'. Community Dental Health, 36(1), 46-54. [More Information]
2018
- Spallek, H., Holden, A., Jean, G., Tennant, M. (2018). Alternatives to the American Model of Dentistry-Australia. Journal of the American College of Dentists, 85(1), 35-39.
- Brunner, M., McGregor, D., Keep, M., Janssen, A., Spallek, H., Quinn, D., Jones, A., Tseris, E., Yeung, W., Togher, L., Shaw, T., et al (2018). An eHealth capabilities framework for graduates and health professionals: Mixed-methods study. Journal of Medical Internet Research, 20(5), e10229. [More Information]
- Holden, A., Spallek, H. (2018). How compliant are dental practice Facebook pages with Australian health care advertising regulations? A Netnographic review. Australian Dental Journal, 63(1), 109-117. [More Information]
2017
- Obadan-Udo, E., Simon, L., Etolue, J., Tokede, O., White, J., Spallek, H., Walji, M., Kalenderian, E. (2017). Dental Providers' Perspectives on Diagnosis-Driven Dentistry: Strategies to Enhance Adoption of Dental Diagnostic Terminology. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 14(7), 1-10. [More Information]
2016
- Kalenderian, E., Halamka, J., Spallek, H. (2016). An EHR with teeth. Applied Clinical Informatics, 7(2), 425-429. [More Information]
- Spallek, H. (2016). Converting Data Cemeteries into Sources of Knowledge: Is Dentistry a Computable Industry? Journal of the Academy of Distinguished Educators (JADE), 4(1), 20-24.
- Straub-Morarend, C., Wankiiri-Hale, C., Blanchette, D., Lanning, S., Bekhuis, T., Smith, B., Brodie, A., Oliveira, D., Handysides, R., Dawson, D., et al (2016). Evidence-based practice knowledge, perceptions, and A multi-institutional, cross-sectional study of a population of U.S. dental students. Journal of Dental Education, 80(4), 430-438.
2015
- Spallek, H., Turner, S., Donate-Bartfield, E., Chambers, D., McAndrew, M., Zarkowski, P., Karimbux, N. (2015). Social media in the dental school environment, part A: Benefits, challenges, and recommendations for use. Journal of Dental Education, 79(10), 1140-1152.
- Spallek, H., Turner, S., Donate-Bartfield, E., Chambers, D., McAndrew, M., Zarkowski, P., Karimbux, N. (2015). Social media in the dental school environment, part B: Curricular considerations. Journal of Dental Education, 79(10), 1153-1166.
2014
- Spallek, H., Johnson, L., Kerr, J., Rankin, D. (2014). Costs of health IT: Beginning to understand the financial impact of a dental school EHR. Journal of Dental Education, 78(11), 1542-1551.
- Weiner, D., Morone, N., Spallek, H., Karp, J., Schneider, M., Washburn, C., Dziabiak, M., Hennon, J., Elnicki, D. (2014). E-learning module on chronic low back pain in older adults: Evidence of effect on medical student objective structured clinical examination performance. Journal of the American Geriatrics Society, 62(6), 1161-1167. [More Information]
- Rush, W., Schleyer, T., Kirshner, M., Boyle, R., Thoele, M., Lenton, P., Asche, S., Thyvalikakath, T., Spallek, H., Durand, E., et al (2014). Integrating tobacco dependence counseling into electronic dental records: A multi-method approach. Journal of Dental Education, 78(1), 31-39.
2013
- Song, M., O'Donnell, J., Bekhuis, T., Spallek, H. (2013). Are dentists interested in the oral-systemic disease connection? A qualitative study of an online community of 450 practitioners. BMC Oral Health, 13(1), 1-11. [More Information]
- O'Donnell, J., Modesto, A., Oakley, M., Valappil, B., Spallek, H., Polk, D. (2013). Authors' response. Journal of the American Dental Association, 139(6). [More Information]
- Oakley, M., Horvath, Z., Weinberg, S., Bhatt, J., Spallek, H. (2013). Comparison of E-Mail Communication Skills Among First- and Fourth-Year Dental Students. Journal of Dental Education, 77(11), 1413-1424.
2012
- Schleyer, T., Butler, B., Song, M., Spallek, H. (2012). Conceptualizing and advancing research networking systems. ACM Transactions on Computer-Human Interaction, 19(1), 1-26. [More Information]
- Schleyer, T., Thyvalikakath, T., Spallek, H., Dziabiak, M., Johnson, L. (2012). From information technology to informatics: The information revolution in dental education. Journal of Dental Education, 76(1), 142-153.
- Oakley, M., Spallek, H. (2012). Social media in dental education: A call for research and action. Journal of Dental Education, 76(3), 279-287.
2011
- Sharma, N., Butler, B., Irwin, J., Spallek, H. (2011). Emphasizing social features in information portals: Effects on new member engagement. Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, 62(11), 2106-2120. [More Information]
- Irwin, J., Thyvalikakath, T., Spallek, H., Wali, T., Kerr, A., Schleyer, T. (2011). English and Spanish oral cancer information on the internet: A pilot surface quality and content evaluation of oral cancer Web sites. Journal of Public Health Dentistry, 71(2), 106-116. [More Information]
- Brodie, A., Crow, H., Eber, R., Handysides, R., Holexa, R., Kiat-amnuay, S., Spallek, H. (2011). Evaluating postdoctoral dental candidates: Assessing the need and recommendations for a national qualifying examination. Journal of Dental Education, 75(6), 719-725.
2010
- Butler, B., Sharma, N., Irwin, J., Spallek, H. (2010). "You Are Not Alone": Effects of Highlighting Social Aspects on Responsiveness, Joining, and Profile Information Sharing in an Information Portal. Annual Meeting of the Association for Information Science and Technology, Silver Spring: Association for Information Science and Technology. [More Information]
- Spallek, H., Song, M., Polk, D., Bekhuis, T., Frantsve-Hawley, J., Aravamudhan, K. (2010). Barriers to implementing evidence-based clinical guidelines: A survey of early adopters. Journal of Evidence-Based Dental Practice, 10(4), 195-206. [More Information]
- Song, M., Spallek, H., Polk, D., Schleyer, T., Wali, T. (2010). How information systems should support the information needs of general dentists in clinical settings: Suggestions from a qualitative study. BMC Medical Informatics and Decision Making, 10(1). [More Information]
2008
- Schleyer, T., Spallek, H., Butler, B., Subramanian, S., Weiss, D., Poythress, M., Rattanathikun, P., Mueller, G. (2008). Facebook for scientists: Requirements and services for optimizing how scientific collaborations are established. Journal of Medical Internet Research, 10(3). [More Information]
- O'Donnell, J., Modesto, A., Oakley, M., Polk, D., Valappil, B., Spallek, H. (2008). Sealants and dental caries: insight into dentists' behaviors regarding implementation of clinical practice recommendations. Journal of the American Dental Association, 144(4), e24-e30.
- Spallek, H., Butler, B., Schleyer, T., Weiss, P., Wang, X., Thyvalikakath, T., Hatala, C., Naderi, R. (2008). Supporting emerging disciplines with e-communities: needs and benefits. Journal of Medical Internet Research, 10(2). [More Information]
Selected Grants
2020
- Reducing hospital acquired pneumonia through best evidence oral hygiene: A multi-modal intervention for nurses in aged care wards, McNab M, Skapetis T, Curtis K, Spallek H, Australian Dental Research Foundation/The ICD Syd Dobbin AM Research Grant
2019
- How do the Consumers of Healthcare Evaluate Advertisements and Testimonials Relating to Services?, Holden A, Skinner J, Sohn W, Spallek H, Australian Skeptics Inc/The Australian Skeptics Grant Program
Professor Spallek graduated from theAustralian Institute of Company Directors' Course and serves as director atCommunity Connections Australia, which provides a range of tailored services to people with disabilities.
In the media
A lack of affordable dental care means Sherry has lost several teeth — and her confidence. ABC, The Drum, 6 June 2023
Lack of funding for dental health research despite growing impact on Australians, Triple ZRadio, 21.12.2022, 06:34
Dental waiting lists hit 100,000 with 15-month delay for appointment, Sydney Morning Herald, 22.4.2022
Dental care must be on the election agenda – it’s time, 21 March 2022
Investing in community health is the solution to our aged care crisis, 1 March 2022
Culture Chat, Interview by Tim Soutphommasane (2022)
What COVID forgot: The orphans of the pandemic response. Sydney Ideas, June 2021
COVID-19 and the Dental Profession: Professional Tensions and Ethical Quandaries: A COVID-19 Sydney Policy Paper In Depth, with Dr Alexander C. L. Holden and Professor Ramon Z. Shaban (2020)
Can I still go to the dentist? How coronavirus is changing the way we look after ourteeth. The Conversation, April 2020
Contribution to: Filling the gap A universal dental scheme for Australia. Grattan Institute Report No. 2019-02, March 2019
Putting technology at the heart of health care. New South Wales Dentist, May 2018
Australian Patients in the Driver’s Seat for Personally Controlled Health Record. With Professor M. Makeham, Chief Medical Adviser, The Australian Digital Health Agency), American Dental Education Association DI Newsletter, February 2018
