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Improving oral health is a leading population health goal; however, curricula preparing health professionals have a dearth of oral health content and clinical ences.
We an educational and clinical innovation transitioning the traditional head, ears, eyes, nose, and throat (HEENT) examination to the addition of the teeth, gums, mucosa, tongue, and palate examination (HEENOT) for assessment, diagnosis, and treatment of oral-systemic health. Many New York University nursing, dental, and medical faculty and students have been exposed to interprofessional oral health HEENOT classroom, simulation, and clinical experiences. This was associated with increased dental-primary care referrals.
This innovation has potential to build interprofessional oral health workforce capacity that addresses a significant public health issue, increases oral health care access, and improves oral-systemic health across the lifespan. (Am J Public Health. 2015;105:437-441. doi: 10.2105/AJPH.2014.302495)
DURINGTHE DECADE FOLLOWing publication of the Surgeon General's Report, Oral Health in America, health professionals, physicians (MDs), nurse practitioners (NPs), nurse-midwives (NMs), and physician assistants (PAs) began to align with the dental profession to heed Satcher's call to "view the mouth as a window to the body."1 The most significant interprofessional movement that followed this report occurred with family practice and pediatric physicians coming together to work on preventive oral health initiatives for children in which those professionals would provide screenings, fluoride varnish, and referrals for children to find dental homes.
Mobilization of the overall health community to work collaboratively has been slower. Development of "Smiles for Life: A National Oral Health Curriculum"2 represented an important interprofessional "tipping point" for engaging health professionals focused on treating populations across the lifespan in considering oral health and its relationship to overall health as an integral component of their practice.
Yet, evidence from national databases monitoring oral health data continue to reveal a high incidence and prevalence of dental caries, especially in lower socioeconomic and minority group populations.3,4 Data from the 2009-2012 National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey5 reveal that approximately one in four children (14%) aged 3 to 5 years living at the poverty level have untreated dental caries. The survey data further reveal that 19% of non-Hispanic Black dren aged to 5 years and 26% of Hispanic children aged 6 to 9 years had untreated dental caries compared with non-Hispanic White children aged 3...