Programs demonstrate oral health care strategies beyond traditional dentistry

Much focus has been placed on poor oral health, particularly among low income children, since the move for health care reform began, and now some areas are increasingly looking to resources outside of dentist offices to address the problem. The Maine-Dartmouth Family Medicine Residency has added dental clinics to its patient care regimen, and in "Storm Lake, Iowa, school and home health nurses are giving oral exams and fluoride treatments to children as part of a broader-based program known as Early Smiles," Candi Helseth reports for the Rural Monitor Newsletter.

A 2008 issue brief from the Center for Studying Health System Change listed "low rates of dental insurance coverage, limited dental benefits available through public insurance programs and a lack of dentists willing to serve low-income patients" as key barriers to dental services. MDFMR faculty member Dr. William Alto began the group's oral health program in 2003 after becoming frustrated by the lack of oral care he saw among his regular patients. "In the last six years, we’ve seen more than 2,300 patients for oral health needs," Alto told Helseth. "Our residents have found cancers, lesions and other oral health problems that need medical care. We encourage our residents to do an oral exam with every medical exam."

While the Iowa Early Smiles program is primarily aimed at children, participants report a positive effect no parents and other family members who also look to improve their oral health care. "We’ve had such positive responses from the community and the increased awareness has really helped our outreach," Early Smiles project director Veronica McFadden told Helseth. "We worked with the university (Buena Vista University at Storm Lake) to create oral health puppet plays that university students wrote. They’re educational and funny, and the humor in them appeals to the adults too. The community likes them so much that I’ve gotten donations to expand the plays to other topics. We’ve even been asked to bring them to places like the Latino Festival. We’ll go wherever we can get our message out." (Read more)