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With the enthusiastic endorsement of the Board of Directors, Dr. Mark Doherty was named Executive Director of the DentaQuest Institute in June 2010.  In this new role, Dr. Doherty will provide leadership and direction for all of the Institute's quality improvement initiatives and technical assistance services and will ensure that the Institute's work is of the highest caliber. Of the appointment, Dr. Neil Ringler, D.D.S., Chairman of the Institute Board said, “We are very excited about the focus of the Institute, Dr. Doherty's leadership, and the possibilities for making a lasting difference in the prevention and management of oral disease.”

Before joining the DentaQuest Institute in 2005 as Director of the Safety Net Solutions (SNS) program, Dr. Doherty had made public health dentistry his life's vocation. For nearly 30 years, he served as the Director of Oral Health Services at Dorchester House Multi-Service Center in Boston, MA, where he built a safety net dental program that included three separate treatment sites, 18 dental providers, several specialty services, and a staff of more than 40. In 1981, he helped found a mobile program that continues to bring dental care to children across Massachusetts.

With Dr. Doherty at the helm, the DentaQuest Institute's Safety Net Solutions program has grown from a pilot in three New England community health centers to a national program serving over 70 safety net dental programs across the United States. As Executive Director, he will be working to expand the DentaQuest Institute's partnerships with oral health care providers and others to further the Institute's mission to promote optimal oral health through efficient and effective care and prevention.

Every day, science is helping oral health professionals better understand the underlying causes of oral diseases. Today, with the right information and the right tools, clinicians can do a better job managing patients' oral health, and individuals can do more on their own to prevent cavities and gum disease from forming in the first place. But it is very difficult for a busy practice to figure out the best way to incorporate scientific advances into their daily activities.

That is the role of the DentaQuest Institute. "Our work is to take advances in oral health science (the final mile) – from the centers of research to the dental office where small changes can make a big difference in the oral health of individuals," says Dr. Mark Doherty, Executive Director. “Rather than trying to prove, the DentaQuest Institute is working to improve oral health. From our Safety Net Solutions program to our quality improvement initiatives, we partner with oral health professionals across the nation to change the way care is delivered."

The DentaQuest Institute's primary focus is supporting oral health care providers as they work to incorporate scientific advances in their daily work in a practical and manageable way. "If we can introduce new approaches that put the emphasis on prevention and disease management, dental practices can keep patients healthier and meet financial goals," added Dr. Doherty. Read about the DentaQuest Institute's many current Quality Improvement and Technical Assistance programs here.

We’ve redesigned our website! Visit us at dentaquestinstitute.org and learn about our newest technical assistance and quality improvement programs, including Safety Net Solutions and its work to enhance the practice management expertise of safety net practices, our work with children’s hospital dental clinics to bring early childhood caries under control, and our new Dental Sealant Initiative, where we’re partnering with safety net dental offices in Massachusetts and Florida on protocols for increasing utilization of dental sealants.

On June 23, Safety Net Solutions presented The Front Desk: Dream Team or Worst Nightmare, a webinar focused on strategies for re-engineering the front desk for efficiency and effectiveness. Over 150 people from 12 states participated. Presented by Dori Bingham, Program Manager for Safety Net Solutions, this webinar highlighted key characteristics to look for in front desk staff and offered techniques for creating a culture of accountability and teamwork between the front and back ends of the dental program. Since 2006, Dori has provided practice management consulting services to over 70 safety net dental practices throughout the United States. Her areas of expertise include front desk operations, the revenue cycle, process improvement and staff development.

DentaQuest Institute's Safety Net Solutions free webinars are presented through its online learning center at www.snsportal.net. A varied program of webinars and online learning opportunities for safety net dental programs is scheduled throughout the year. Topics vary within the spectrum of issues important to today's safety net dental program staff and leadership. Webinars are archived for future viewing at www.snsportal.net.

 

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A very significant dilemma facing our oral health care delivery system is an outdated and ineffective definition of disease and treatment. The existing system is built around a surgical treatment cycle.

"Unfortunately, this traditional model does very little to change the underlying caries disease process," explains Dr. Peter Blanchard, Dental Director of the DentaQuest Oral Health Center. "As a result, there is a high likelihood that patients continue to return with new manifestations of dental disease (cavities). Our careful review of current research and literature convinced us that the better approach is to control the disease and then educate the patient so that together we can control the underlying disease process," he added. The DentaQuest Oral Health Center (OHC), the model dental office run by the DentaQuest Institute, is one of a small number of dental practices in the United States that have made disease management the core of patient treatment.

"Our goal is to bring each patient to a disease-free state. To achieve this result, we have undertaken a significant re-engineering of our practice to accommodate risk-based care and disease management," continued Dr. Blanchard. For several years, the DentaQuest Oral Health Center has followed a disease-management model of care, first working to get the existing caries under control. Once that is achieved, the practice uses a combination of non-surgical therapies and education to help the patient prevent new disease.

With its considerable experience in this new model of care, DentaQuest Oral Health Center is now providing clinical technical assistance to other dental offices interested in making the transition to risk-based treatment and disease management. Dr. Blanchard and his core team recently began working with GHI Family Dental Practice in Albany, New York. The GHI Family Dental Practices are affiliated with GHI, an Emblem Health Company, which provides health coverage and administrative services to individuals in New York.

"In our work with GHI Family Dental, our starting point was a detailed review of current protocols and processes," said Dr. Blanchard. "Understanding that, the DentaQuest Institute technical team is designing a customized strategy and implementation plan that encompasses both prevention and disease management protocols, and effective non-surgical therapies. We are also introducing the practice to concepts of quality improvement, including metrics for disease indicators. The DentaQuest Oral Health Center depends on these tools to measure our success in getting existing disease under control and our effectiveness at preventing new disease," said Dr. Blanchard. Learn more here.

 

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DentaQuest Institute advisor Mary E. Foley, R.D.H., M.P.H., has a long history of involvement with oral health improvement and children's oral health. The former state dental director for the Massachusetts Department of Public Health, Office of Oral Health, and former dean of the Forsyth School of Dental Hygiene at the Massachusetts College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences, Ms. Foley also served with the Children's Dental Health Project, and on the executive councils for the Association of State and Territorial Dental Directors and the American Association of Public Health Dentistry. Since 2006, she has lent her expertise to the DentaQuest Institute as an advisor on the Early Childhood Caries and Dental Sealant quality improvement projects. Today, as the executive director of the Medicaid/SCHIP Dental Association, Ms. Foley is supporting association members and partners across the United States.

What do you see as the key value of the DentaQuest Institute?

The DentaQuest Institute has been instrumental in changing the face of oral health. The Institute's founders sought to embrace challenging issues surrounding oral health care delivery for America's most vulnerable residents. The Institute is making important contributions to the way practitioners care for children. The technical assistance provided through the Safety Net Solutions program is helping safety net dental practices reconfigure to care for growing numbers of uninsured or underinsured individuals in need of help – a growing concern across the country.

You've been involved in the Early Childhood Caries initiative?

I have a special affinity for this project. While working for the Children's Dental Health Project in Washington, D.C., I oversaw a federally-funded campaign aimed at improving perinatal, infant, and toddler oral health, and worked with many dental care leaders focused on the health of young children. Early childhood caries is a pressing challenge across the country. The Institute's Early Childhood Caries quality improvement pilot is applying established research in a patient setting and developing protocols that can be repeated in other hospital settings. This is a big step forward in our work to eliminate this disease.

What about efforts to prevent cavities in adolescents?

Sealants are a cost-effective and practical way to give adolescents protection against a very preventable disease. In 2008, when I was Dean of the Forsyth School of Dental Hygiene at the Massachusetts College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences, the Journal of the American Dental Association published an article on the efficacy of school-based dental sealants. This was a significant breakthrough in preventive oral health care that would be a fabulous Institute project. Here again, the Institute is taking key research and resources and developing a practical protocol for incorporating sealants into regular patient care in safety net dental offices. The protocol is currently being refined in community health centers in Massachusetts and Florida. Increasing the percentage of states in which adolescents are protected with dental sealants is a Healthy People 2010 goal. I am looking forward to seeing the results of this newest Institute quality improvement project.

 

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