Core Research Area
Iowa Dentistry's Patient-Centered Dental Home (PCDH) project is designed to improve the organization and delivery of dental care in a variety of care settings and in an integrated manner with other health care services.
As part of this project, researchers developed an interactive, online PCDH Clearinghouse of over 600 oral health quality measures and standards, the latest product of the PCDH project. This PCDH Clearinghouse is searchable and organized in alignment with the PCDH framework developed as part of a broader effort to define and measure the concept of a patient-centered dental home. The PCDH project, including development of the PCDH Clearinghouse, is supported by the CareQuest Institute for Oral Health.
The PCDH project has been underway for several years with the goal of defining a patient-centered dental home model of care and quality measurement framework that facilitates dental care quality measurement and improvement across multiple care settings as well as medical-dental integration. The PCDH project has been conducted with active engagement of a broad range of national thought leaders and stakeholders.
Patient-Centered Dental Home Quality Measurement Framework
PCDH Definition (Phase One)
In Phase 1, a group of national experts identified and defined every essential characteristic of a patient-centered dental home. For example, one such essential characteristic is accessible.
Components of Characteristics (Phase Two)
Iowa's expertise in a wide-variety of fields ensures that our graduates are well-rounded, competent in a variety of specialties, and able to collaborate with experts in any area of specialty.
Measure concepts for each component (Phase Three)
For each of the various components identified in Phase 2, Phase 3 identified and developed measures to evaluate each component. For the timely component, for example, one measure is the percentage of the population that has timely access to emergency care when needed.
Specific Quality Indicators (Phase Four)
Drawing from the expertise of the national advisory committee for the project, participants used a structured consensus-building approach to hone the definition, components, and measure concepts of the patient-centered dental home, thereby providing specific measurable standards related to the quality of dental oral health care.
Patient-Centered Dental Home News
