Oral health is crucial to overall health. Because of normal physiologic changes, pregnancy is a time of particular vulnerability in terms of oral health. Pregnant women and their providers need more knowledge about the many changes that occur in the oral cavity during pregnancy. In this article we describe the importance of the recognition, prevention, and treatment of oral health problems in pregnant women. We offer educational strategies that integrate interprofessional oral health competencies.
Improving oral health is a leading population health goal; however, curricula preparing health professionals have a dearth of oral health content and clinical experiences. We detail an educational and clinical innovation transitioning the traditional head, ears, eyes, nose, and throat (HEENT) examination to the addition of the teeth, gums, mucosa, tongue, and palate examination (HEENOT) for assessment, diagnosis, and treatment of oral-systemic health. Many New York University nursing, dental, and medical faculty and students have been exposed to interprofessional oral health HEENOT classroom, simulation, and clinical experiences. This was associated with increased dental-primary care referrals. This innovation has potential to build interprofessional oral health workforce capacity that addresses a significant public health issue, increases oral health care access, and improves oral-systemic health across the lifespan.
The aim of this study was to evaluate the effectiveness of an interprofessional education (IPE) clinical simulation and case study experience, using oral-systemic health as the clinical population health example, for nurse practitioner/midwifery, dental, and medical students' self-reported attainment of interprofessional competencies. A pretest-posttest evaluation method was employed, using data from the Interprofessional Collaborative Competency Attainment Scale (ICCAS) completed by two large cohorts of nurse practitioner/midwifery, dental, and medical students at one U.S. university. Data from faculty facilitators were collected to assess their perceptions of the value of exposing students to interprofessional clinical simulation experiences focused on oral-systemic health. The results showed that self-reported interprofessional competencies measured by the ICCAS improved significantly from pre-to posttest for all three student types in 2013 (p<0.001) and 2014 (p<0.001). Faculty facilitators reported that the IPE clinical simulation experiences were valuable and positively influenced interprofessional communication, collaboration, patient communication, and student understanding of patient care roles. These results suggest that the Teaching Oral-Systemic Health Program Interprofessional Oral-Systemic Health Clinical Simulation and Case Study Experience was effective as a standardized, replicable curriculum unit using oral-systemic health as a population health exemplar to teach and assess interprofessional competencies with nurse practitioner/midwifery, dental, and medical students.
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