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AMessage from the ADA
Community Dental Health
Coordinator Program
The Revised Program for
Dental Case Management
By Dr. Jane Grover, Director of CAPIR—ADA
For more information
on the CDHC program,
please visit ADA.org or contact
Dr. Jane Grover, Director
of the Council on Access Prevention
and Interprofessional Relations
at
[email protected]20
New Mexico Dental Journal, Fall 2016
O
ver the past several years,
the FDA has approved some
new or a l a nt i c o a g u l a nt
medications that provide an alterna-
tive regimen for traditional Warfarin
patients. This article will review those
medications and how I manage surgery
in an office setting.
There has been much information
lately about a new member of the
dental team advocated by the
ADA called the Community
Dental Health Coordi-
nator (CDHC). A
CDHC empha-
sizes case
management, patient navigation, and
community/individual oral health pre-
vention. With the expansion of Med-
icaid in so many states and statistics
showing that only half the people with
commercial dental insurance use it, the
time is right to discuss the CDHC’s
true value.
The ADA began the CDHC program in
2007 as a pilot program in three sites.
The pilot program concluded in 2012,
and the data from over 80 case studies
was analyzed. Thirty four CDHCs who
completed the pilot program now work
in eight states across the country. They
are not “mid-level providers”.
The purpose of the pilot program was
to develop community health workers
with dental skills. Individuals in
training had diverse back-
grounds, including
dental hygienists, assistants, and oth-
ers who interact with patients. The
curriculum was taught in an online
format with several in-person meet-
ings over the length of training. A cer-
tificate was granted after the program
was completed.
Since the pilot’s conclusion, it is clear
that the most efficient CDHCs are
dental assistants or dental hygienists.
The current online curriculum breaks
apart into “stackable” credits, which a
community college can conveniently
integrate into their own existing dental
assisting or hygiene curriculum.
CDHCs may provide preventive services
as the State Dental Practice Act allows,
but their true value lies in their commu-
nity work, including oral health promo-
tion and prevention, patient navigation,
and case management. These skills are
explicit parts of the CDHC curriculum.