Health organizations pull together to form pediatric dental center: hospital facility to focus on training dentists, serving children in need

San Diego Business Journal, July 21, 2008 by Andrew Schweizer

San Ysidro Health Center has assumed operations of the Pediatric Dental Clinic at Rady Children's Hospital as part of a collaborative effort with the hospital and UC Los Angeles' Dental School to form the San Diego Children's Dental Clinic, or SDCDC.

The dental clinic will focus on providing pediatric dental services to medically fragile children.

"We were approached to acquire the center because of affiliations that we have with some of their directors and their staff," says Sergio Cuevas, San Ysidro Health Center's dental director. "They're (Rady) aware of our accomplishments and goals within the San Ysidro community, therefore they wanted to go ahead and make a partnership that will serve children who are medically compromised."

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The SDCDC will take over Rady's current pediatric dental clinic on the hospital's campus. The space is leased to San Ysidro Health Center from Rady for three years at $6,000 a month. Services at the clinic began April 9.

The idea developed from talks between Ed Martinez, chief executive officer of the San Ysidro Health Center, and Meg Norton, chief operating officer at Rady's. Both saw a need for providing pediatric dental assistance to children who not only suffer from dental ailments but have additional medical problems such as cancer or Down syndrome and need special attention.

"We're trying to develop a dental care network in the county," says Martinez. "Children's Hospital has always been the central hub for the care program because of their training and facilities, so if we can hook up with them we'll be able to have a more comprehensive continuum of care."

Shared Responsibilities

That continuum of care is comprised of shared responsibilities between all three parties. Rady's is providing the ambulatory clinic on its campus, which opens access to three additional dental chairs as well as an operating room for more complex dental procedures. San Ysidro Health Center brings its clinic facilities located in the South Bay along with children who need pediatric dental care due to its large dental network. UCLA's Dental School is responsible for providing the residents and faculty who will rotate through not only the SDCDC but the San Ysidro Health Center and South Bay Family Dental Center, as well as training of the residents and accreditation of the program.

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"It gives us a chance to do some innovative program development ... and to explore new ways of working with underserved children and communities," says Dr. James Crall, chairman of UCLA's Pediatric Dentistry program. "It helps to establish a platform in the San Diego community for dental programs to be built."

Crall also cites a need for the program in San Diego County because of a lack of dental schools, which makes it challenging for health care outlets such as San Ysidro Health Center and Rady's to recruit pediatric dentists.

Careers For Students

With UCLA bringing residents down from its Westwood campus to rotate through the program, the SDCDC expects to spend less time and money on recruiting, and UCLA plans to benefit by having a program to funnel students into the pediatric dental field.

"We don't have enough dentists to take care of dental disease so we have to focus on preventive medicine," says Martinez. "We're now able to expand our program and care model and instead of just primary care we can take care of children who have it (dental disease)."

At full capacity, with four UCLA residents, two attendings and occasionally pediatric dentists from the community on staff, the SDCDC will serve 20 children a day with up to four children in the operating room.

"Being a nonprofit, it's giving us a connection to link South Bay to such a great resource like Children's Hospital to assist patients that are medically compromised to receive the dental attention that they need," says Cuevas. "It'll also help us to take care of the No. 1 disease for children, dental decay, which is higher than asthma or any other circulatory problems we face."