Recently, we here at the SMILES Dental Project had the honor of hosting an esteemed group of oral health leaders to continue the work of making the project a reality! For two days, June 17-June 18, we met with leaders from the Colorado Dental Association; various colleges from across Colorado including the Colorado School of Dental Medicine and community college representatives; HCPF; CDPHE; Health Foundations; and community health centers.
Dr. Paul Glassman from the University of the Pacific was our guest. Dr. Glassman is the visionary behind the virtual dental home, and has spent the past 7 years testing strategies to determine the feasibility of integrating oral health care into community spaces. This week he shared his experiences with the group and gave feedback on topics from training for Interim Therapeutic Restorations, to establishing evaluation criteria, to selecting sites, to overall implementation of a project of this scope. A core focus of the work during his visit was to discuss that we are not simply changing the location where dental care is being delivered. Rather, the virtual dental home creates a new system of oral health care delivery that creates access to dental services where none currently is available.
Dr. Glassman gave a faculty lecture at CU’s school of Dental Medicine on revolutions in the delivery systems and finances of dental treatments. It’s a changing world of care and the dental school faculty discussed opportunities for dental education to teach students for practicing in this new world. The Faculty also discussed research opportunities to look at the new virtual dental home systems as they develop to inform the field about what works, the economics of these systems, factors that facilitate spread.
There was a great deal of enthusiasm and interest from our attendees, and we had some robust discussions. We are so fortunate to be working with all of these passionate and knowledgeable people in Colorado’s oral health community.
It’s quite exciting to see this project evolving. We’ve been fielding questions from the community about our request for proposals and it looks like you all are as excited as we are. Thanks to everyone for their continued involvement and interest. We can’t wait to see how SMILES Dental Project will continue to grow and take shape in the coming months!
