Abstract:

Health information systems are increasingly proposed as a means of carrying clinical evidence to the point of care, yet their role in implant treatment has rarely been examined in these terms. Implant treatment has matured into a predictable form of oral rehabilitation, supported by high survival rates and by a rapidly expanding set of digital planning, diagnostic, and documentation tools, but the pace of technological innovation has outstripped its consistent translation into routine care, leaving a persistent distance between the available clinical evidence and everyday practice. This narrative review reframes that distance as an information management problem and examines the extent to which health information systems may operate as translation mechanisms between evidence and the point of care. Drawing on a structured Scopus search of literature published between 2015 and 2025, the review organises the relevant work along three information-system dimensions: clinical decision support and decision-making, registries and electronic health records, and patient-facing information. The synthesis indicates that the gap reflects the limited translation of evidence into workflow-embedded, point-of-care formats, compounded by the fact that many digital products reach the market with little or no clinical documentation. Health information systems emerge as a plausible lever whose effectiveness is not yet conclusively demonstrated, with adoption shaped by usability, workflow fit, interoperability, data quality, and clinician trust in system-generated recommendations. A research agenda is proposed for evaluating these systems as translation mechanisms and not as isolated technical artefacts.