Michigan Department of Health and Human Services receives $387K Grants to States to Support Oral Health Workforce Activities grant from the Health Resources and Services Administration

Grants to states to support oral health workforce activities - the Michigan Department Of Health And Human Services (mdhhs) aims to address oral health disparities and improve the oral health workforce capacity in dental health professional shortage areas. To accomplish this, the mdhhs proposes the development of the Michigan oral health workforce innovation network (mi-ohwin) and it will be administered by the mdhhs oral health program (ohp. It will include two innovative approaches to increase the capacity of the oral health professional workforce and increase access to dental services in dental health professional shortage areas (dhpsas) in Michigan. The mdhhs will partner with the Michigan primary care association for project development and implementation and wingspan research group for evaluation activities. Within the funding opportunity announcement, this project will address two focus areas depending on the project activities. The activity focus areas include: #8 practice support through teledentistry in accordance with state laws; #13-c activities to develop or improve dental therapy programs, including dental health aid therapist programs in accordance with state laws and policies. For activity 8, specific dhpsas for the project will include low-income population dhpsa counties that also house a facility hpsa fqhc. For activity 13, dental therapy legislation requires that the dental therapy professionals practice in underserved areas, therefore also targeting counties that have a low-income population hpsa as well as a facility designation such as an fqhc. The ohp will partner with mpca to promote teledentistry by performing an environmental scan, provide educational sessions and develop a pilot teledentistry project within an fqhc dental clinic located in a dental hpsa. In addition, the ohp will also partner with mpca to promote a dental therapy project by providing educational sessions to dental professionals on the dental therapy professions, support and garner interest among academic in stitutions that could provide a dental therapy program, develop a network of potential employers and maintain an advisory group within mpca on dental therapy support. Evaluation of the project will include the development of toolkits for both teledentistry and dental therapy to support sustainability after the grant period.