As a health care provider, you are an integral part of your patient’s health and wellbeing. Frequent wellness visits with pediatric patients provide an opportunity for you to promote oral health and help establish healthy oral hygiene habits.
For more information on how you can incorporate oral health into wellness visits, please click here.
Smiles for Life was developed by the Society of Teachers of Family Medicine Group on Oral Health and is endorsed by the American Academy of Pediatrics, American Academy of Family Physicians, the American Dental Association, and many other professional organizations.
Smiles for Life is a comprehensive oral health module that can help you integrate oral health into your practice. You can learn to assess risk factors for tooth decay, perform oral health examinations, and counsel patients on preventative techniques.
Each of the courses in the curriculum is free and available online, and allows you to progress at your own pace. Free Continuing Education credits are available.
Take advantage of the Smiles for Life Curriculum and become the first line of defense against childhood dental disease.
In addition to the curriculum modules, Smiles for Life offers other helpful resources, including:
By the end of the new Oral Health course, you will be able to recognize the role pediatric primary health care professionals play in providing oral health care including: understanding the importance of a dental home; knowing how to perform a caries risk assessment; understanding the importance of maternal oral health; becoming familiar with fluoride varnish (who should apply it and how it is applied); and addressing families' concerns about fluoride varnish. EQIPP courses help identify and close gaps in practice using practical tools while earning CME credit and meeting MOC Part 4: Performance in Practice requirements all at once. Each course requires some work online and offline and can be completed within 4-8 months, depending on the number of improvement cycles implemented to reach specific goals.
National Public Health Week webinar: Being healthy from the start includes good perinatal oral health. Please see the recorded webinar, and accompanying slides: Oral Health Care During Pregnancy: A National Consensus Statement and Maternal and Child Health Bureau: Perinatal Oral Health Initiative.
Fluoride Use in Caries Prevention in the Primary Care Setting
Dental caries remains the most common chronic disease of childhood in the United States. Caries is a largely preventable condition, and fluoride has proven effectiveness in the prevention of caries. The goals of this clinical report are to clarify the use of available fluoride modalities for caries prevention in the primary care setting and to assist pediatricians in using fluoride to achieve maximum protection against dental caries while minimizing the likelihood of enamel fluorosis.
