Monday Roundtable Luncheon
Francisco Ramos-Gomez, DDS, MPH
Professor of Pediatric Dentistry
UCLA
Hamida Askaryar, RDH, MPH
Program Manager
UCLA
In 2010, the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) under the direction of Dr. Ramos-Gomez (professor of pediatric dentistry), launched an Infant Oral Care Program (IOCP) at the Venice Family Clinic Simms/Mann Health and Wellness Center. The Infant Oral Care Program is part of a large multi-state quality improvement Early Childhood Caries Collaborative. It provides care coordination that is culturally competent, sensitive to diverse cultures and oral health literacy challenges.
The program aims to increase access to care and improve oral health outcomes through a disease prevention and management model (CAMBRA) targeted at typically underserved, low-income, minority children ages 0-5 and their mothers/caregivers in a non-traditional setting. It has established partnerships with Women, Infants and Children (WIC) and Early Head Start/Head Start programs to increase entry points to dental care through coordinated referrals.
IOCP not only trains dental students/residents on infant and toddler oral health but it includes training for pediatric medical residents and pediatric nurse practitioner students. Eliminating early childhood caries (ECC) and addressing oral health disparities requires the collaboration between dentists and other health care providers to ensure a continuum of contextually appropriate and targeted care.
This innovative and unparalleled clinical model represents the future of oral health, early intervention and dental disease management, and sets a new standard of comprehensive, integrated, widely accessible and evidence-based dental care emphasizing prevention.
To find out more about UCLA IOCP please visit: http://www.uclaiocp.org/.