Our task at hand: Developing an ideal pediatric dental prevention program for the country.

(I'd be interested in helping develop an ideal comprehensive pediatric dental program for the country with Irina and David.)

Topics for discussion should range from:

Behavior Guidance - especially for toddlers and children to 6 year old

Preventive dentistry options: OHI, flossing

Fluoride usage – topical options and systemic (salt fluoridation - How do we get the government and population to buy in?)

Sealant usage

SDF – care of pre-cooperative children

Infant toddler oral health care – under age three visits

                    Clinical exam

                    OHI to parents

                    Education of parent – your kids don’t have to have missing teeth, pain

                    Education of the public, physicians, nurses, educators, and other dentists on the positive potential of early care and prevention.

Place a preventive dental program as part of the school system (Minister of Education)

Challenge: How do we get to the parents and children under 5 (pre school age)? By 5 and 6 they already have dental caries. How do we convince them to bring their children, be educated about preventive techniques, and follow through with care?

Training dentists and staff - Put in standard operating procedures for clinical protocols for Pediatric Dentistry. Train them. Make their care more predictable and less stressful. I feel with excellent behavior guidance techniques where the parent and child have a good experience and seeing them early (18 mos to 2yrs old), we will reduce the caries rates significantly. It will also make pediatric dentistry more desirable and profitable. Also a 2 yr program to teach dental assisting is too long with out having them able to do at least some small expanded duties like a prophylaxis, fluoride treatment, and sealants. This can also make pediatric dentistry more profitable for pediatric dentists. 

Use of a dental software system that can monitor clinical care and produce statistics to validate our recommendations.

That's all for now. I look forward to working with everyone.

Arnie

Oral Health Foundation for Children of Armenia

OHFAR.am

Howard Karegheusian

COAF

Are baby teeth important?