G-2305-18277

The Denver Health Foundation is an independent 501(c)(3) nonprofit corporation that raises private funds that support Denver Health and Hospital Authority in its role to sustain and advance the health and well-being of Denver, Colorado and the Rocky Mountain Region.

With the requested funding, Denver Health Foundation is seeking to expand upon a project funded by CareQuest Insititute in 2022 to build the efficacy and practice of dentists as vaccinators for Human Papilloma Virus in adolescent children. The project is mid-way through and has seen the target percentage (35%) of eligible young adults accept the vaccine within their dental office. Qualitative results are currently undergoing analysis. Funding was requested prior to these finalized results in order to meet the 2023 fall flu season.

The expanded project within this proposal will target young children between ages 18 months to 5 years to receive influenza vaccines within routine dental visits. The project work will involve creating an advisory committee to review results of the HPV program and plan for implementation; training clinic staff, implementing influenza vaccination, workflows, and EHR tracking in the clinics; and evaluating the pilot through quantitative data analysis, patient focus groups and surveys. To drive systemic change, Denver Health Foundation will develop a best practices toolkit, a formal report and share results of this pilot in national venues like the National Oral Health Conference and National Network for Oral Health Advocates. Denver Health Foundation will also utilize the results to advocate for expanded scope of practice for dental professionals to serve as vaccinators in CO.

The request for this project is $78,160, which is less than 1% of the organization's overall budget. Budget line items include FTE costs for the principal investigator, researcher, and data analyst. Less than $5,000 of the budget is allocated for conference travel and fees to disseminate learning.