With support of members, sponsors, and partners, the IOHA serves as the convener for collaborative discussions and actions that lead us toward our collective vision of optimal oral health for Idahoans. Financial support and active engagement from all our champions help us lead conversations and facilitate actions that move us closer to this vision.
Our mission: To lead collaborative efforts to bring optimal oral health to Idahoans through education, advocacy, and program development intentionally acknowledges IOHA leadership in statewide efforts to work collectively to address the oral health needs of all Idahoans.
Oral Health Integration
To support our long-term initiative of leading Oral Health Integration into Primary Care Settings in Idaho, we’ve moved from test phase to pilot phase for the IOHA Referral Network. When we started laying the groundwork for oral health integration, medical providers told us that they believed in the concept of medical-dental collaboration and wanted to support integration efforts, but that a significant hurdle was the ability to efficiently refer their patients to dental providers. Dental partners shared similar frustrations in connecting their patients with medical homes. So, we set out to solve this first issue by creating the IOHA Referral Network. This one-of-a-kind bi-directional medical-dental closed-loop referral system is managed by the IOHA and is only accessibly by providers who sign on as partners and meet network expectations. The IOHA was awarded a 2021 Dental Trade Alliance grant to expand the footprint of this concept. While the long-term vision for the network is a statewide system, during the pilot phase, we hope to add up to six medical clinics and up to ten dental clinics to our roster of participating providers. Our deep gratitude is extended to Delta Dental of Idaho who has generously loaned the services of Taleah Bankos, RDH, to serve as our Referral Network Manager.
Healthy Me is Cavity-Free Initiative Revived
Originally managed as a collaborative by the IOHA between 2013 and 2017, this revived statewide initiative is taking on the dire issue of caries in children ages 0 to 6. The impetus was the latest Idaho Smile Survey report that showed little improvement on this issue over the last 20 years of data collection. Idaho 3rd graders are still experiencing some caries experience at a rate of 65.5% when the national goal is 49% or less*. With renewed dedication to the issue, the IOHA is leading a steering committee of 25 individuals representing 16 organizations from across the state. Five sub-committees have been established to address different avenues to combat the problem. For more information, visit http://www.idahooralhealth.org/healthy-me-is-cavity-free
Other work accomplished this year included:
– Advocacy and grass roots support of enhanced Idaho Medicaid dental reimbursement rates, Medicaid expansion, and inclusion of dental benefits for Medicare
– Support of the adoption of teledentistry utilization in Idaho
– Leadership in the creation of the 2021-2026 Idaho Oral Health Implementation Plan
– Participation in national efforts to support oral health equity through the OPEN (formerly the DentaQuest Oral Health Network)
– Ongoing support of the Idaho Oral Health Program’s efforts regarding Silver Diamine Fluoride, Teledentistry, Community Water Fluoridation, and Workforce Assessment
* http://www.idahooralhealth.org/resources
Even with corporate support, your membership payments continue to make the IOHA work possible, so we look forward to your continued feedback, volunteer participation, and renewal of your dues for 2021.
For more information about the Idaho Oral Health Alliance, please contact IOHA Executive Director, Jennifer Wheeler, at jwheeler@idahooralhealth.org Renew your membership today by visiting http://www.idahooralhealth.org/membership/
Thanks to our 2020 sponsors: Delta Dental of Idaho, Idaho Oral Health Program, MCNA, Eide Bailly
