Report outlines challenges for oral health

{mosads}Current barriers, the report says, include:

• Limited evidence of best practices for most dental procedures, leading to widespread variation in clinical decisions among dentists;

• The fact that government only pays for about 6 percent of dental care nationally, and dental practices and their patients are not part of a larger provider organization pushing for improvements; and

• Few incentives to put in place quality improvement programs.

“The focus on quality improvement for overall health care is an important opportunity to improve the quality of oral health care,” study author Paul Glassman said in a statement. “The biggest problem now is we are developing many measures, but they need to be connected to performance of the system.”