Why Teledentistry for Dental Public Health?
You're determined to create sustainable programs that move the needle on oral health…and you are open to new approaches.
Your programs have healthcare touchpoints (FQHC, SBHC, primary care, pediatric…) that you see as opportunities to add effective connections to dental health.
You see that dentists' and specialists' clinical skills within your program network are not being fully utilized.
You are offering dental screenings, but would like to see those leveraged for greater oral health impact in your communities.
And hygienists can capture snapshots of student oral health at each encounter. (Nurses could also provide this capture.) A fuller picture is present over time. Problems can be caught earlier, before it means absenteeism or higher treatment expense.
Taking advantage of the lower cost of sending hygienists or other health professionals into the field for outreach or screenings, while retaining the ability to add clinical dental expertise via live or asynchronous input by the dentist. Less travel required by patients, because initial treatment plan and evaluation can be done remotely.
Let's say you are an FQHC. FQHCs serve populations that have higher incidences of dental and oral health issues. It makes sense then that dental care should intersect more widely with the health engagement at FQHCs. FQHC staff quickly trained with TeleDent, could be opening doorways to clinical dental evaluations for patients. In addition to dental care inputs, sharing a quick intraoral exam and capture with a remote dental professional when a patient is being treated by FQHC staff could help identify related systemic conditions, such as diabetes or pre-diabetic conditions.
What if pulling data to show granting sources what your programs are achieving took minutes instead of days (or weeks)? What if insights gained month by month, translated into better program outcomes month by month? What if you could keep grantors in the loop and engaged easily with quarterly updates on work accomplished? TeleDent provides consolidated data tracking on your teledentistry outreach that can turn into renewed grants and successful grant proposals.