The Role of Oral Health Care Professionals in Providing Medical Services.

Integration of oral health care professionals (OHCPs) into medical care could advance efforts to control increasingly prevalent conditions such as cardiovascular disease, diabetes mellitus, human immunodeficiency virus infection, and hepatitis C infection, each of which is associated with significant morbidity and health care costs. Prevention and early intervention are effective for reducing the incidence and severity of these diseases, while increasing cost of health care may drive the need for nontraditional models of health education and delivery. Studies have suggested that a dental office is a suitable setting for the purpose of screening and referrals for these conditions and may result in medical expenditure savings. Such innovations would challenge the current dental educational model and the education and training of faculty. Implementing this change would require recognizing opportunities and challenges for the profession and the need for new competencies in dental curricula. Challenges and opportunities are described, including reimbursement models and integration of OHCPs into emerging health care delivery models. Ideas for curricular change are presented, including the need for added emphasis on biological sciences and the introduction of new courses to address systems thinking and forces driving preventive behavior. To embrace the evolving health care arena and be a part of the future interprofessional health care delivery dynamic, dental curricula should also include substantive interprofessional education opportunities. Such opportunities would provide the basic skills and training to recognize and appreciate patients' oral health issues in the broader context of their overall health and well-being. This article was written as part of the project "Advancing Dental Education in the 21 Century."