ECHO Overview
The overall objective of the Oral Health Care Initiative is to develop and implement innovative models of dental care, with the goal to increase access to quality oral health services, serving HIV+ and underserved populations in both urban and rural settings nationally. Moreover, to improve, expand and sustain access to quality oral health care services to individuals living with HIV/AIDS.
Goals of the Center
- Improve access and adherence to high quality oral health care for underserved populations.
- Implement a mixed methods multi-site evaluation of the demonstration projects.
- Assist grantees in implementing both the multi-site evaluation and their local evaluations.
- Disseminate findings to a broad range of audiences including oral health care providers, medical care providers, consumers and policy makers.
Technical Assistance
The Center provides technical assistance and training to the 15 Special Projects of National Significance (SPNS) oral health demonstration sites in order to facilitate the successful implementation of the programs.
Due to the diversity of the sites, the breadth of the technical assistance needs vary widely. However, the ECHO team, which includes both leaders in the field of HIV & oral health and program evaluation, will provide support on a range of clinical and programmatic issues.
Assistance will be provided in developing outreach strategies for client recruitment; improving the capacity of medical providers to detect oral health needs and make referrals; improving linkages with the continuum of HIV care; implementing oral health clinical policies and procedures; recruiting and training dentists to participate in HIV oral health care and implement HIV oral health patient education materials and interventions.
Multi-site Evaluation
In collaboration with the SPNS sites, the Center will conduct a multi-site evaluation, working with the sites to collect data to answer key research questions (identified below).
Multi-site data will be collected to measure outcomes including; increased access to oral health care, patient outcomes and program implementation processes, strategies to overcome reimbursement obstacles, provider and patient education training outcomes, and lessons learned that will be useful for a broader audience.
The Center will also describe the process of implementation of the grantees’ interventions with a focus on clinical, programmatic and structural issues addressed by the demonstration sites. Focused evaluation studies involving sub-groups of demonstration sites will also be conducted.
Study Questions
- Do the demonstration programs increase access to oral health care for the target population?
- What are the main similarities and differences in strategies and program models to increase access to oral health care across programs?
- Are the oral health services performed in accordance with professional practice guidelines?
- Do clients experience improvements in health outcomes over time?
- Are clients’ oral health care needs met?
- Do clients experience improvements in oral health related quality of life after enrollment in oral health care?
- What strategies are most effective in furthering successful program implementation: barriers, facilitators, key lessons learned?
- What strategies to address the structural, policy and financing issues can be replicated in other settings?
Research & Dissemination
The Center will promote and coordinate the dissemination of findings to oral health care providers, public health and state financing policy-makers, CARE Act grantees and people living with HIV.