The American Dental Association Foundation (ADAF) has granted a significant three-year, $375,000 award to Advocate Illinois Masonic Medical Center. This funding is dedicated to bolstering a vital new initiative focused on improving oral health care accessibility for children with special needs: the Advocate Special Patient Dental Care Program.
This generous grant directly supports the medical center’s dental anesthesiology residency program. This program operates in close collaboration with both the General Practice Residency and the established Special Patient Dental Care programs. Together, they are committed to providing comprehensive oral health services to patients facing intellectual and developmental disabilities. The newly funded program is set to become a leading model for the advanced training of dental anesthesiologists. These specialists are crucial in delivering care, often requiring deep sedation or general anesthesia, for children with complex developmental or physical disabilities. For these young patients, access to such specialized care is frequently hindered by limited availability of hospital operating room space.
Dr. William R. Calnon, president of the ADA Foundation, emphasized the program’s significance, stating, “The special needs program at Advocate Illinois Masonic is truly impressive. Children with all types of disabilities, both developmental and physical, are provided with access to excellent treatment. The dental anesthesia residency is a very innovative addition to an already superb program and will allow more kids to avoid hospital operating rooms.”
The Advocate Special Patient Dental Care Program is structured around key objectives:
- Expanding Reach: To broaden the medical center’s special needs dentistry program, enabling it to serve a larger number of children at younger ages. This will be achieved through strategic referral relationships, effectively connecting children with special needs to a dedicated dental home at the center.
- Improving Outpatient Care Capacity: To enhance the quality of care provided to children with special needs by significantly increasing the program’s capacity to manage complex cases within an outpatient setting, minimizing the need for hospital operating room procedures.
- Establishing a Best-Practice Model: To develop and implement a model program that can serve as a benchmark for improving the overall oral health status of children with special needs nationwide.
Dr. James Benz, chair of dentistry at Advocate Illinois Masonic Medical Center, expressed his gratitude, “This generous grant will enable us to enhance our special needs dentistry program by further expanding access to oral care for this very vulnerable patient population.”
Residents in Advocate Illinois Masonic’s dental anesthesia program work in tandem with general practice residents. They provide treatment to special needs patients both in the operating room and in the department of dentistry’s recently constructed anesthesia suite. Furthermore, the program is strengthened by a mobile dental van. Residents and staff rotate weekly to utilize this mobile unit to deliver essential oral care to special needs patients who might otherwise lack access to this critical type of care.
