HJLR May/Jun 2019

dialogue 14 MAY / JUN 2019 I  Healthcare Journal of LITTLE ROCK   (typically $1.5-2.5M). We aren’t building reserves; we encourage our foundation board and staff to spend every penny to help under-served people all over the state of Arkansas receive the care they need. Some of the many recipients of DDARF grants are the Arkansas Mission of Mercy; local com- munity dental clinics; public schools with oral health education/prevention programs; Special Olympics; dental clinics at UAMS and CARTI; Arkansas Children’s Hospital’s (ACH) dental clinic and sealant programs; ACH and Washington Regional Medical Center mobile dental units, and over 30 community water systems across our state for equipment to add fluoride to their water. Over 200,000 Arkansans have benefited from grants we funded in 2018 alone. DDARF has spent over $7 million on the fluoridation project since 2011, and the result is that more than 600,000 Arkansans who previously did not have cavity-fighting flu- oride in their water have it today, and they will benefit from this investment for gen- erations to come. There is simply no better investment. That said, there is much more to do. We are excited about our new strate- gic plan, with our focus shifting from trans- actional to transformational. This will only happen if we seize the opportunity to work collaboratively with other committed orga- nizations to improve the health and well- ness of our state. You will learn more about the strategic plan of Delta Dental of Arkan- sas Foundation in the months ahead. Editor How can Delta Dental make dental care more affordable for consumers? Choate As the old saying goes, it’s cheaper to avoid a problem than to fix it. That is certainly true with dental care. Education, prevention, and treatment are essential to achieving optimal oral health in a popula- tion. If education and prevention are effec- tive, fewer treatments are needed, which will reduce cost and make dental care more affordable. For that reason, we fully sup- ported and funded the fluoridation project. Research has demonstrated that for every $1 spent to fluoridate water, $38 is saved in dental restoration services. The medical and dental integration pro- gram referenced above involving medical PCPs with moms and their infant children will be a large scale effort to educate medi- cal teams and their patients, and connect community medical and dental providers. In the past year, Delta Dental also began work- ing with pre-school Head Start programs to help educate parents and children on the importance of brushing and flossing, eating nutritious snacks/meals, and seeing their dentist regularly. As children begin elemen- tary school, our foundation supplies grant funds to public school programs (most notably Little Rock Public Schools) in col- laboration with their school nurses to pro- vide education, oral evaluations, risk assess- ments, and fluoride varnish treatments. In addition, Delta Dental helps to fund a school-based sealant program administered “…Delta Dental helps to fund a school-based sealant program administered by ARChildren’s Hospital. Each year, ACHworks with over 60 schools across the state and 6,000 students receive free sealants and fluoride varnish to protect their teeth.”