February & March 2016
In six weeks, our team has visited five SMILES Dental Project grantees across Colorado, spanning from Rifle in the west to Lamar in the far southeast. We’re learning about grantees’ progress in planning a new system of dental care, their lessons learned, and challenges that still exist. We’re also providing guidance about where to start when SMILES implementation begins in October 2016.
The six SMILES Dental Project grantees are hard at work developing partnerships with community sites, strengthening team plans and system roles, and thinking about an operational plan.
To move from a regional project vision to a site-specific plan, grantees are honing their hub-and-spoke concept designs and site locations for sequenced implementation. Many are assessing community readiness and interest among local leaders to be potential community sites, or spokes. They are meeting and visiting with stakeholders at schools, churches, centers for homeless adults, and nursing homes to identify where they could logistically and sustainably deliver dental services.
Grantees are identifying potential technology, training, and technical assistance issues that they will address in their operational plans. One challenge will be IT infrastructure that allows secure transmission of digital x-rays. In many community settings, the internet bandwidth is not powerful enough, and grantees will need to explore other solutions.
During our visits, the SMILES evaluation team also conducted initial focus groups to understand where concerns exist, and how community members and potential partners view this new system of care. We will track whether these perceptions change over time.
Grantees have shown tremendous dedication and compassion for the people in their communities who have no access to the current dental care system. The teams will provide much needed dental care to adults experiencing homelessness and behavioral health challenges, underserved children in rural schools, and seniors in assisted living facilities.
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