EXCELth, Inc.
1515 Poydras Street,
New Orleans, LA
United States
EXCELth is an FQHC that operates a Primary Care Network across Louisiana. The Primary Care Network provides various medical and dental services to underserved communities throughout the state. EXCELth, Inc. has been recognized as a state leader in providing quality healthcare for its part in improving oral health and works with the Louisiana Primary Care Association, Louisiana Dental Hygiene Association, and Head Start programs to address barriers to care for underserved communities.
This proposal focuses on the Louisiana Smile Krewe School-Linked initiative, which has two component goals. The first is to develop community partnerships to increase the number of students utilizing school-linked mobile dental programs. The second part involves the use of teledentistry to provide preventive services to Louisiana’s rural and Medicaid-eligible communities. Through this initiative, a mobile dental program will go to schools to provide preventive care, with a focused outreach to schools with large Latinx populations. Many of Louisiana’s rural communities lack dental infrastructure, which is why mobile dental care is viable and schools potentially a valuable venue for care with an aging dentist population. With the Mobile Dental Program, parents of the children in the marginalized areas we serve have difficulty taking their children to the dentist. By providing preventive care at school, children have improved access to oral health care to reduce inequities.
The goals of this grant are to significantly increase the number of schools in EXCELth, Inc.’s mobile dental program, promote the creation of teledentistry programs with partner FQHCs, and complete a needs assessment with data collected from the project efforts to share with the state and other safety net entities. Through this proposal, EXCELth, Inc. will develop and disseminate a teledentistry manual for its fellow health centers. This resource would position schools and fellow FQHCs to explore and establish teledentistry programs that would capitalize on the existing dental workforce while also equipping the state with information to build an oral health plan. Evaluation of the project will be determined based on community input and engagement on program recommendations and unmet needs.
EXCELth, Inc.’s request includes funding to support a coordinator for the mobile dental and teledentistry programs who will meet with parents/families to provide oral health education and compile feedback from surveys, a dental hygienist to support these engagement efforts and resource development, and a dental director who will lead collaborative efforts to promote legislation to expand teledentistry services throughout Louisiana. The recommended amount of $125,000 is approximately 1% of the organization’s overall budget.