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Identify oral health services to integrate into my practice?
Although childhood dental disease is common, families face many barriers in accessing treatment. That’s why it is so important to offer prevention in settings where children are present, like the doctor’s office. There are a growing number of models for medical-dental integration and resources to help you assess what your practice is ready to do, what your population needs, and what sort of access to dental services currently exists.
Oral Health in Primary Care is a resource page from the American Academy of Pediatric Dentistry.
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Oral Health Integration Implementation Guide from the National Interprofessional Initiative on Oral Health and Qualis Health provides an action plan to implement screening for oral health risk factors and active disease, initiate appropriate preventive interventions, and coordinate dental care.
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The Patient Centered Primary Care Collaborative is dedicated to advancing an effective and efficient health system built on a strong foundation of primary care and the patient-centered medical home and offers a variety of oral health integration resources.
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Oral Health Nursing Education and Practice (OHNEP) helps nurse practitioners, nurse-midwives, nurses, and other health professionals incorporate oral health into patient care. OHNEP advocates, educates, creates and promotes resources that educators and clinicians can use to improve the quality of oral health care in their patients.
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Integrating Oral Health and Primary Care Practice Initiative (HRSA) is designed to facilitate practice change among primary care practitioners in safety net settings by improving the knowledge and skills of primary care clinicians and promoting interprofessional collaboration across health professions.
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The National Network for Oral Health Access developed a user’s guide that provides a structure, options, and suggestions to help health centers develop programs to implement oral health competencies which integrate oral health care into primary health care, increasing access to oral health care, and improving the oral health status of the populations the health centers serve.
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Smile Connect is Altarum’s integrated oral health care scalable model that combines provider education and information technology to improve access to dental care.
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Colorado Medical Dental Integration Toolkit is a how-to guide for medical organizations seeking to fully integrate a dental hygienist or other methods of providing oral health services into medical practice.
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The Virginia Oral Health Coalition Oral Health Integration Toolkit serves as a guide to help medical and dental teams integrate their care processes, includes four components, and addresses a wide array of health professions.
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The Rural Health Information Hub offers a Rural Oral Health Toolkit designed to help you identify and implement an oral health program in your community and includes a wide variety of resources and best practices.
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DentaQuest Partnership MORE Care is an interprofessional oral health initiative to integrate oral health competencies and capabilities into primary care offices in rural communities while building patient-centered referral networks with local dental providers using health information technology.
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Interdisciplinary Approaches for Improved Oral Health: Building the Field Through Integrated and Community-Based Health Practices, a 2019 White Paper from the American Association of Public Health Dentistry, highlights three interdisciplinary approaches for improving oral health: HPV vaccination uptake, fluoride varnish application, and reducing emergency department (ED) utilization for nontraumatic/preventable dental conditions.
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Oral Health: An Essential Component of Primary Care, a 2015 White Paper from Qualis Health, delineates the oral health activities which align with the management of preventive, acute and chronic health care needs that is provided by the primary care team.
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