Mobile dental clinic docked awaiting dentist, maintenance
By Phyllis Moore
Published in News on February 23, 2017 9:43 AM
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News-Argus/PHYLLIS MOORE
The Wayne County Health Department' s mobile dental clinic, "Miles of Smiles," is currently docked at Work Source East on U.S. 70 West, the former Wayne Community College campus, pending maintenance and the hiring of a new dentist. The regular dental clinic is being phased out, officials said, as the Health Department moves exclusively to the mobile program that will serve children in the community who lack access to a dental home.
The dental clinic at the Wayne County Health Department is currently closed, as officials are advertising for a new dentist and converting the program exclusively to a mobile unit for children.
The dentist position has been vacant since November, coinciding with the mobile dental van's most recent school visit, Health Director Davin Madden said. The unit is now parked at Work Source East on U.S. 70 West, the former Wayne Community College campus.
"We finished up, our last school was Brogden Primary and the dentist was able to wrap up all the services needed there, and that's when we moved it over, kind of docked it if you will," he said. "We docked the unit to start setting up a maintenance plan as we formulated how we were going to hire the next dentist."
The 50-foot tractor trailer bearing the colorful artwork and the message "Miles of Smiles" was put on the road in December 2014. It had been purchased through funding secured from the county commissioners. The goal of the mobile option was to reach children lacking access to dental care and providing them with services and a dental home.
Pulling the unit off the road for maintenance is actually a good thing, Madden said. Between stops at school sites during the year and programs like the Boys and Girls Club and the YMCA day care during the summer, there had not been enough down time to ensure the essential upkeep was being done, he said.
"It has actually been a blessing a little bit for us to have that time and now with the restructuring that I've tried to put in place, with the approval of the board to 'sunset' the in-house clinic over the next three to five months and going exclusively to the mobile unit, where the demand for us as a public health agency to gap coverage is really more prominent," he said.
The departure from services for adults is not as problematic as one might think, Madden pointed out, in part because Goshen Medical Center started up a dental practice on U.S. 70.
At the same time the summer months can be more precarious, which the Health Department is weighing as it works to restructure the dental program.
"The problem with going exclusively to a mobile unit is during the summertime, without any year-round schools and the fact that some of the children that are housed in Head Start programs, Boys and Girls Club, the YMCA, the areas where we have kids, there's a little bit of an unknown every summer to how many kids will participate and need to be seen," Madden said. "That makes it kind of unpredictable for us to have a dentist kind of cued up in the summertime.
"And of course the obvious question is, why don't you see adults during the summertime? The problem there is that is strictly an unpredictable model. We haven't been able to really serve them as a dental home throughout the year. We're just kind of relying on random walk-ins."
It is costly to try to have a dentist on standby during the summer, hoping that enough adults take advantage of the services, he explained.
That prompted the proposal to the Board of Health, to ensure continuity of care for the county's children in need of the services.
"That unit, even though it leaves one school and goes to another, it becomes a dental home for that child. So if the child needs dental services, and it's not at their school, we don't prohibit them from going to the unit. They can still be seen, (parents) just have to coordinate transportation," Madden said. "It really is a strong partnership with us and the school system to reach out to these vulnerable children."
The plan is to hire a dentist on a contractual basis -- to work from 20 to 40 hours a week -- and includes a productivity bonus that will make it more financially beneficial for the dentist.
When the mobile unit is not at a school site, it could also be parked at a centralized location for services, he said.
Best case scenario would be to have a contracted dentist in place in March, allowing the program to operate at one, or even two, schools before the summer.
"What we'll do during the summer is put the contract on hold and let that dentist kind of be in a holding pattern to allow us to basically get our schedule set up for next year," Madden said. "That's what we've learned from the previous two years of operation. Now that we've seen a lot of the schools, we still have one permanent staff member at the Health Department that worked from the inception so they have a better take on the schedule and they'll help put together the schedule."