G-2103-16879

The National Interprofessional Initiative on Oral Health regards itself as the only profession neutral, national voice for interprofessional integration of oral health into whole person care. Founded in 2009, NIIOH uses a collective impact approach to engage organizations from multiple, diverse parts of the healthcare workforce to work together to create change across education and practice.

NIIOH does this by providing resources for interprofessional oral health competencies in education and clinical training, such as Smiles for Life, which in 2020 had reached over 2 million views online. Smiles for Life is a free and national training resource that includes oral health CE certified curricula across multiple professions including physicians, nurses, PAs, medical assistants, and pharmacists.

With this proposal, the Arcora Foundation is co-funding the Smiles for Life dimensions of the work and this request is CareQuest Institute to fund the NIIOH part of the work. In 2020, NIIOH completed a strategic planning process which resulted in an operational plan that contains areas of infrastructure growth including: Board and Governance, Communications, Financial Management, Fund Development and Diversification, Network Building, and Resource Development. The focus of this proposal is to grow the oral health workforce through the integration of oral health into primary care while strengthening the foundational structure of NIIOH as a leader in interprofessional practice. To do this, NIIOH will cultivate oral health champions, facilitate interprofessional learning and agreement, develop tools and resources that build oral health knowledge, skills, and a share oral health culture across the primary care workforce, and support, align and connect partner efforts to integrate oral health into education and practice. Specifically, NIIOH will
• sustain leadership appointments to national advisory committees,
• produce at least four peer-reviewed or invited presentations at research, practice, education, or workforce meetings,
• coauthor or serve in advisory capacity for at least three articles and/or annual reports,
• support and promote new iterations of the Smiles for Life curriculum for frontline health workers (and in Spanish), and
• Chair HRSA’s 17-person Advisory Committee on Training in Primary Care Medicine and Dentistry.

The total request is for $208,263, which covers the cost of staff time associated with implementing the operational plan.

The collective budget between NIIOH and the Smiles for Life work is roughly $400,000, which would make this grant roughly 50% of the total organizational budget.