Impact of interprofessional oral health care

Abstract

Laura S Larsson College of Nursing, Montana State University, Bozeman, MT, USAI read with enthusiasm the evaluation results of Colorado’s oral health education (OHE) initiative reported by Braun et al.1 As the health care community attempts to address the problem of persistent early childhood caries, expanding service delivery to nontraditional environments and expanding the scope of practice to non-dental providers are both promising ideas. I applaud Colorado and the other states where they have tied Medicaid reimbursement for non-dental providers to completing an OHE training program. I further applaud the effort of Braun and her team to evaluate the policy initiative. As other states consider how to move forward, it should be helpful for them to read the results of the strategies tested in Colorado.View original article by Braun et al. 

Keywords

• oral health
• health services
• interprofessional education
• early childhood caries