Just last month, the Canadian government announced the Canadian Dental Care Plan would extend to provide oral healthcare coverage to all Canadians 18+. This will enable another 4.5 million uninsured Canadians to access the oral healthcare they need. This is an important milestone for the health of Canadians. This decision also reflects national recognition of the critical importance of oral health to the overall health of Canadians.
Why does this matter?
The Canadian Dental Care Plan represents Canada’s first steps to answering a global call to see oral health integrated into national health systems by 2030. Integrated health systems and practice not only improves access to oral healthcare and professionals, but also can enhance interprofessional collaboration.
Interprofessional collaboration means that multiple professionals from diverse disciplines work collaboratively to provide patient care. Collaboration between healthcare professionals in the planning, and delivery of patient-centred care is linked to improved patient outcomes. Interprofessional collaboration is widely considered a key pillar of more effective healthcare teams and systems and has been identified as a buffer to burnout among practicing health professionals. Connecting Canadians with more primary care access points and collaborative team-based care is needed to address healthcare challenges.
Why oral health professionals are needed on primary care teams
More oral healthcare for Canadians betters positions oral health professionals as a first-contact healthcare provider and primary care access point. Oral health professionals help detect, treat and manage various health conditions. Dentists and dental hygienists assess and monitor health history, medications and changes to health status. They can make timely referrals and connections to other key healthcare team members, helping patients get the care they need, when they need it.
Oral health professionals detect more oral cancers and in earlier stages than any other health professional. About 90% of head and neck cancers originate from our upper aerodigestive tract – which includes the mouth, lips, tongue, gums and throat. The detection and diagnosis of lesions in the mouth in their earliest stages is critical to improving patient survival rates. But most lesions are not detected until late-stage when they become symptomatic or spread to other parts of the body causing patients to seek out a primary care practitioner. During each visit to a dental practice, oral health professionals screen for signs of disease such as oral, head and neck cancers.
But these screenings are only a small portion of the role oral health professionals play in health promotion and disease prevention. A national dental care plan enables more individuals from underserved, and often high-risk populations, to be screened for oral cancers and other oral and systemic disease. Oral professionals are increasingly essential for collaborative interprofessional teams and networks in practice, as we handle some of our most complex healthcare challenges.
Understanding how oral health and primary care can work better together begins with education. As access to oral healthcare expands across Canada, we must also expand the education and training of all our health professionals to recognize the importance of ‘whole body’ care.
The critical role of education is a topic I will unpack in next month’s blog post!
Photo by Cedric Fauntleroy
