The region's largest safety net dental provider has received a $2.16 million federal grant to help train its residents on how to better treat individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities and certain medical conditions, like HIV and diabetes.
The award to Eastman Institute of Oral health will be used to create a community-based training model to improve practitioners' dental skills and knowledge when treating this population.
“If you look at the amount of dental disease that this population has, it's way more than the general population," said Dr. Sangeeta Gajendra, chair of the department of community dentistry at the institute. "And of course, it's because they are not able to access routine dental care." .
Gajendra said these populations lack access to oral care primarily due to the shortage of providers who have the skillset to treat them. She said only about 5% of clinical dentistry training focuses on the most vulnerable. She said the EXCEL program, as the initiative is called, will expose younger dentists to this experience.
“There's this population that we need to serve. We need to provide comprehensive care to this population,” Gajendra said. “It's really important that they are able to train and understand them better, so that they, in future, can serve them better.”
The institute manages more than 190,000 patient visits annually — 65% of which are covered by Medicaid.
Gajendra said the grant will also be used to develop oral health literacy training. She said this will also ensure that the proper language is used when speaking with this community of patients.
