By Erin Major, School Based Health Director, Summit Community Care Clinic
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| Leadville, CO |
According to the Pew Charitable Trusts, “more than two-thirds of the American population face crucial challenges in getting access to dental care, lack of dental insurance policy, insufficient and limited dental care providers, prohibitive cost and transportation and mobility issues.” In response, “dental teams are being expanded to include mid-level workers who are also considered as dental therapists.” (Source)
Such recent news coverage contextualizes and drives home the purpose and priorities of the SMILES Dental Project right here in Colorado, and why it’s perhaps particularly relevant in Summit County. The Summit Community Care Clinic services rural mountain communities in a five-county region where residents have inadequate or no access to primary care and oral health care.
For more than five years, we’ve provided school screenings and preventive dental services at Summit County School District School Based Health Centers (SBHCs); the Summit SBHCs completed 1,865 dental screenings and preventive care visits in 2015-16; we anticipate 560 additional visits in this first year of the SMILES initiative. And we’re excited to scale the positive impact we’ve seen at other sites.
Specifically, as part of the SMILES Dental Project, we’ll also be providing dental services at the Lake County School District in Leadville, the South Park School District in Fairplay, and the Family and Intercultural Resource Center (FIRC) in Breckenridge. At each site, we’ll offer comprehensive SMILES services – including screenings, cleanings, fluoride treatments, sealants, X-rays and, if needed, Interim Therapeutic Restorations (ITRs).
We’re inspired to go deeper into these new sites – starting with Lake County – to provide not only screenings and services, but also case management for kids (and their families) who require restorative work. That’s good news for Lake County because more than 45% of residents here earn less than 200% of the Federal Poverty Level (FPL), and 66% of school children qualify for free or reduced-price lunch … and there’s been only one part-time dentist in the area with limited availability!
In the 2015-16 school year, we completed 240 dental visits at the Lake County SBHC; we’re expecting some 145 additional SMILES visits over the course of the current school year. A dentist’s chair is now a permanent fixture at the SBHC in the Lake County high school, and all future SMILES visits will be completed in this dental space. Additionally, with the recent creation of a Lake County dental home at the office of Dr. Curtis Slack, the Care Clinic will also be able to provide more extensive restorative care to the district’s 1,100 students in the coming year.
It’s one thing to creatively devise a way to provide dental care in schools – but we can achieve a much more significant and sustainable impact in our vulnerable communities when we have a dental home for kids to go to when a screening reveals a problem.
The Caring for Colorado Foundation’s SMILES initiative came along at just the right time for us. We’re focused on kids right now, and SMILES is helping us redefine delivery of care in Summit County – from strengthening and expanding our infrastructure to refining our workflows, integrating the technology piece, and narrowing the time it takes to get needed restorative care once a problem has been identified.
Before SMILES, we knew we were making a difference by providing preventive care; now, we’re coming full circle by also providing restoratives services, as appropriate. At the same time, we’re aware of some pushback from private practice dentists … so we’re working as collaboratively and transparently as possible. After all, we share a common goal: to expand availability and access to care for at-risk residents – including kids from low-income families in remote communities like ours.
