1705-13326

This grant supports the continued investment in the Center for Health Care Strategies (CHCS) to implement and expand the State Oral Health Leadership Institute, engaging pairs of Medicaid dental program and state oral health program leaders to improve statewide oral health, particularly for vulnerable populations. As part of this project, the Center for Health Care Strategy will cultivate the leadership and change-management skills, policy knowledge, and program/quality-improvement capacities of state Medicaid and public health dental directors through the State Oral Health Leadership Institute (SOHLI). During Year 1 of this initiative, CHCS engaged five state pairs of the Medicaid dental and public health dental directors to develop and implement a collaborative transformational project focused on a mutually agreed-upon goal. Some of these included pursuing an incremental increase in their state Medicaid program to cover pregnant women, designing and implementing dental prescribing guidelines for opioids, improving care linkages between school-based oral health programs and local dental providers. In Year 2, CHCS will expand the Institute to include a second cohort of up to four states. In its role, CHCS will continue to support SOHLI Fellows with a series of technical assistance, guidance around the development of joint transformation projects, leadership development, and a one-day site visit. $266,935 will support personnel time necessary for the project's implementation, staff travel needed to provide technical assistance and leadership development, and other administrative costs associated with the work's implementation. This work will have tangential impacts across several Oral Health 2020 goals and targets, but it most closely aligns with the goal of Including a Dental Benefit in Publicly Funded Insurance and the target that by 2020, at least 30 states have a comprehensive dental benefit included in their Medicaid program.