PC1272: Creating a Sustainable Oral Health Prevention Framework for Non-dental Telehealth Visits (OHFT)

Background: Oral health reflects the physiological, social, and psychological factors that are essential to quality of life. Evidence connects a healthy mouth with a healthy body throughout the life cycle. Despite its importance, many barriers exist to good oral health. Early childhood caries (ECC) is the most common chronic disease of childhood, and is 85% preventable with appropriate care. Despite the large burden of disease, its management remains a public health gap.

Oral Health Framework for Telehealth (Non-dental Virtual Visits) (OHFT) is a medical/dental collaborative project to improve population oral health through including oral health prevention measures in virtual visits of many types. OHFT is led by the pediatric advisors of the PA AAP Healthy Teeth, Healthy Children, a Medical/Dental Collaborative program, with input and guidance from a larger multidisciplinary Advisory Group and diverse Focus Group participants. OHFT intends to define oral health prevention tools representing “value” in “non-dental” virtual visits and teach incorporation of them. Population oral health will be improved through use of these tools in virtual encounters.

Methods: The OHFT project began in January, 2022. A diverse Advisory Group, IRB exemption from WCG, a script of questions for focus groups, and a list of 150+ potential focus group participants were created. The first set of Oral Health Prevention Education Tools for virtual visits will be created in the second half of 2022 using input from consultants, qualitative automated intelligence tools, piloting practices, and a Learning Collaborative.

During Years 2-6, a best practice guide will be created. OHFT and the Learning Collaborative will add virtual education models, CPT/RVU code generation, Bright Futures/USPSTF recommendations and additional tools.

Results: The most prevalent topics of discussion have been education and electronic vehicles to transmit the information. Many professional cohort participants have vocalized their concerns about topics that are missing from current practices. Groups involving parents have spoken about helping young children with oral hygiene measures and strategies to overcome them. This project is also learning through these focus groups about common obstacles that exist with delivering these messages.

Focus group input is currently organized into 4 general categories: Education, Timing, Modalities, and Limitations to facilitate development of best practice tools which we will present in this session. New modalities such as QR codes and messages linking to videos to embed in practice websites will also be presented.

Conclusion: Preliminary conclusions about contents of the possible tools and modalities for transmission are expected by October 2022 for piloting.