Group Calls for More Integration of Oral Health Care Services

A group of dentists from the University of California, Los Angeles, (UCLA) School of Dentistry and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Dentistry and Gillings School of Global Public Health has issued recommendations on improving the integration of dentistry and primary health care to help influence policymakers, clinicians, educators, and health researchers. The paper “Integrating Oral Health, Primary Care, and Health Literacy: Considerations for Health Professional Practice, Education and Policy” commissioned by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine’s Roundtable on Health Literacy reports integration of oral health and primary care is in its infancy, and outlines 21 recommendations on what is needed to effectively integrate oral health and primary care.

Recommendations include applying a comprehensive framework that encompasses integration theory, oral health, and primary care into practice, education, research, and policymaking; incorporating oral health literacy principles at all levels in an integration framework on oral health and primary care; prioritizing oral health promotion and disease prevention in integration activities to reduce health disparities; exploring the best ways to establish formal collaboration and referral networks among health care systems, medical practices, and dental practices in local regions; and developing and refining quality-of-care metrics that include the degree of integration between primary care and oral health.

From Dimensions of Dental Hygiene. April 2018;16(4):14.