John Eisner, DDS, PhD

Dr. John Eisner joined the UB School of Dental Medicine in 1989 as a Visiting Professor. In 1990 he was offered a permanent appointment with duties split between curriculum development and dental informatics. His first administrative appointment at UB was Director of Dental Informatics. In 1992 he became the Associate Dean for Academic Affairs and in 1993 he was named Associate Dean for Information Resources. He developed and led the Office of Information Resources (OIR) from 1993 to 2000 as they pursued a wide variety of IT projects within the school. Some of these include developing a superb staff, bringing computing and Internet connections to every full-time faculty member, installing email, developing the school's web-site, assisting the creation of a 'student' web site, developing an 'in-house' clinical management system, then training faculty, students and staff in the use of the clinical management system, and assisting with the growth of IT literacy among students and faculty.

During this time he also developed a not-for-profit extension of OIR known as The Academic Software Collaboration (TASC). This software development and support group developed a number of applications (AdMIT, GrAdMIT and CoursEval)and soon had over 1000 clients around the world. In 2000 he resigned his administrative positions to concentrate on moving TASC outside the University under the guidance of the UB Alliance Office of Technology Transfer. TASC eventually emerged as a company known as Academic Management Systems with both UB and a parent company (Liaison International, LLC) holding equity positions in the start-up company.

In 2005, Liaison International created a new Division to promote a new software product known as eAccreditation. Dr.Eisner became Vice President for Accreditation Services and has since helped to guide the dissemination of eAccreditation to eight health professions accrediting agencies. This product is now being considered by many other accrediting agencies.

Dr. Eisner moved to 'emeritus' status when he retired from the University in 2010. His previous appointment was at Dalhousie University where he was Assistant Dean for Academic Affairs and was responsible for the design and implementation of the school’s curriculum and its new clinic information system which Dr. Eisner designed. Prior to that time he held academic and administrative appointments at the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey.

Dr. Eisner was the inaugural chair of the American Association of Dental Schools (AADS) Information Technology Committee and has been instrumental in starting a number of national informatics initiatives including the AADS Curriculum Database Consortium and the AADS Consortium on Clinical Information Systems. Since arriving at UB he has received nine informatics grants or contracts totaling over $500,000. Dr. Eisner is a member of the ADA and CDA, a Fellow of the American College of Dentists, a former Vice-President of the ADEA, and a former commissioner of the American Dental Association’s Joint Commission on National Dental Examinations.

Dr. Eisner received his DDS from the University of Alberta in 1968 and his PhD in Education from the University of Michigan in 1976. He is married to Joanne Morgan, a former high school teacher. They now reside in Florida and Buffalo.

Dr. Eisner continues to be interested in developing administrative database applications for health professions schools. The team he leads here at UB has developed a curriculum analysis tool (CATs) as well as an admissions management tool (AdMIT, also known as the AADSAS Client among dental schools) for distribution. The team has also released a web-based course assessment tool (CoursEval), a web-based admissions tool (WebAdMIT), and web-based data collection tool (WebDC).

Dr. Eisner is also interested in the development of electronic tools to support Quality Assurance applications and accreditation management.

[Search for Publications in MEDLINE]

• Eisner, J., “The Application of Computers to Accreditation” Journal of Dental Education, Vol. 61 (June 1997) pp. 493 - 500.
• Schleyer, T. and Eisner, J., The Computer-based Oral Health Record: An Essential Tool for Cross-provider Quality Management, California Dental Association Journal, Vol. 22, No. 11 (November, 1994) pp. 57 - 64.
• Eisner, J., “Curriculum Analysis Tools (CATs): A Cooperative Approach to the Design of Curriculum Databases”, Proceedings of the 17th Symposium on Computer Applications in Medical Care (SCAMC), October 30 - November 3, 1993, Washington, DC. pp 766-770.
• Vullo, R., and Eisner, J., “DentLE™: The Dental Learning Environment: A Prototype Demonstration”. Proceedings of the Sixteenth Annual Symposium on Computer Applications in Medical Care (SCAMC), November 8-11, 1992, pgs. 800-801.
• Eisner, J., Tedesco, L.A., and Vullo, R., "DentLE™ The Dental Learning Environment: A Prototype", Proceedings of the Sixteenth Symposium on Computer Applications in Medical Care (SCAMC), November 8-11, 1992, Baltimore, MD. pgs. 697-701.
• Eisner, J. et al, The Computer-based Oral Health Record: A New Foundation for Oral Health Information Systems, American Fund for Dental Health, 269 pp., 1993
• Eisner, J., Johnson, L., and Williams, J., Sun, C., and Rosenthal, G. The AADS Index to Computer-based Resources in Dental Education (1993-94), UB Foundation, Inc., 274 pp., 1994