We were featured in the NYU Langone Health Issue, The Bridge!

Our collaboration with this program allows us to receive Dental Residents that learn from our providers, see patients and serve in our communities. Dr. Richard Jimenez was one of those residents! He was partnered with Dr. Luis Miron for a year, then we hired him as a full time dentist!

NYU also recognizes the way that we continued to provide stability for our employees, learning opportunities for students and provide safe care for our patients through the pandemic.

Thank you NYU for this remarkable recognition. We are so grateful to be partnered with your program to continue teaching our future Dentists.

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The organization has always placed emphasis on employee and patient safety. When COVID-19 hit, they reacted quickly to outfit all patient rooms to negative pressure rooms; practitioners were fitted for N95 masks or respirators. They were also able to collaborate with another health center nearby to help manage emergency cases. While CBHA did not close their doors during the pandemic, they did see a decrease of nearly 10,000 patient encounters over the last year.

Despite decreased services and patient visits, the organization has continued to employ all of its providers and has hired more dental hygienists to work in the clinics. Administration allowed staff to work from home when conditions did not allow them to come into the office, in order to keep everyone employed.

Telehealth services were something that was in the works pre-COVID. During the pandemic, they were able to launch two telehealth programs to reach more patients in the community. Family Oral Health Education (FOHE) allows medical providers to conduct dental screenings and educate mother and child in the medical setting. Dental hygienists sit in on well child visits, for children 6 and under, to answer questions and encourage families to follow-up with a dental provider. CBHA also created oral health educational videos that were shared during and after medical appointments. CBHA created these videos and applied it to telehealth dental visit for all FOHE soon after the pandemic started.

The second telehealth program focused on pregnant woman. At the time of their OB visits, oral health information and videos were shared to educate expectant mothers on the importance of oral health during and after pregnancy. Videos and brochures are in both English and Spanish as 55% of CBHA’s population only speak Spanish.

During the peak of COVID, some of these telehealth services were reimbursable, helping to bring in additional revenue to offset the decreased number of patient encounters when the clinic had to limit services. While no longer being reimbursed by the state, today, the organization is continuing to provide these services because they have seen the significant impact on the community.

When asked, “What have you learned over the past 18 months,” Dr. Ji Choi, Dental Director said,

“We’ve learned we can effectively keep COVID out of the clinic. There has been a 0% transmission rate from patient to staff and staff to patient. While wearing all the additional PPE is still cumbersome and sometimes hot and uncomfortable, it is effective. Second, we have learned that people are resilient. Our dental providers and staff have provided compassionate care for our patients, our community, and one another. Lastly, I am most proud to share that we have hired a recent AEGD Program graduate, Dr. Richard Jimenez, to work in one of our clinics. One of the primary goals of establishing an AEGD residency program was to train the next generation of public health/community dental practitioners who might stay to work in the region. I’m delighted to have achieved this goal.”

You can view the article HERE