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April 18, 2022
Over the course of the pandemic, health care providers have adapted to a new kind of workplace reality. For oral health care providers, that meant learning how to deliver dental care in the safest way possible, for both patients and staff.
To discuss how the pandemic has led to some lasting changes in oral health, Dr. Deborah George, the chief dental officer and executive vice president at the Jessie Trice Community Health System, a Federally Qualified Health Center (FQHC) in Florida, shared her organization’s experience during the March 7 CareQuest Institute webinar “Lasting Lessons from Pandemic Responses in Safety Net Dentistry.” Sarah E. Raskin, PhD, MPH, an assistant professor and researcher at Virginia Commonwealth University, and Lisa E. Simon, MD, DMD, fellow in Oral Health and Medicine Integration at Harvard School of Dental Medicine, also joined the expert panel and shared their perspectives on the ongoing changes in the industry.
Medical-Dental Integration and Social Determinants of Health
Throughout Dr. George’s presentation, there was one key theme that emerged: the importance of proper medical-dental integration.
As an FQHC, the Jessie Trice Community Health System has a variety of health care providers on staff, and patients can meet with all their providers in one visit. This kind of care system prioritizes treating a patient’s overall health — a desired outcome of medical-dental integration — versus siloed treatment.
When discussing some of the top lessons learned during the pandemic, Dr. George homed in on several ideas around how to improve the medical-dental experience for patients.
“For one, we know that teledentistry and team-based telehealth visits really work, and they increase access to care,” Dr. George said. “There’s an opportunity to strengthen oral health and primary care integration, and we were able to do that through team-based care and having one visit. With teledentistry and telehealth, [patients] had different doctors on board, and each one of them provided care to the patient for 15 minutes each. Patients were appreciative, and it was a good alternative to coming in on a regular basis, and they can see all their health care providers in just over an hour.”
Dr. George also discussed the increased need to address social determinants of health and the importance of culturally competent care, including understanding a patients’ lived experiences outside the health center.
“During the pandemic, we learned a few things,” said Dr. George. “For example, when we asked people to wait in their car because we couldn’t accommodate more than 10–15 patients in our lobby, some patients would tell us, ‘I don’t have a car to wait in.’”
The Future of Oral Health
Incorporating those lessons learned, Dr. George went on to explain the center’s vision for the future of dentistry, one that focuses on three main areas:
- Promoting prevention and optimizing dental care visits, including:
- oral cancer screenings
- education around vaccine hesitancy
- a focus on minimally invasive dentistry
- Strengthening a dental-medical integrative care model, including:
- team-based telehealth care visits (dental, medical, nutritional, pharmacy, and behavioral health)
- increased use of intraoral camera in school-based programs
- hiring a patient-centered health care navigator to help improve access to preventive dental health care; work closely with the primary care medical team; and coordinate oral health visits for prenatal patients, children, adolescents, adults, and seniors with chronic medical and dental diseases
- Increasing patient access and workflow efficiency, including:
- an enhanced AEGD Residency Program
- increased access to dental procedures and decreased patient time spent in the dental chair
- a robot assistant that can provide age-specific oral health education and post-operation instructions
Editor’s Note: To learn more, watch a recording of the webinar or read an interview with Dr. George.