In the News

Published on

Dimensions of Dental Health Hygiene

Over the past decade, legislatures across the United States have grappled with scope of practice issues for health professions, including dental hygiene. Almost every state has provided new permissions or enabled conditions for broader practice in response to new technology, improved science, novel dental materials, or alternative methods for delivery of care. Downstream effects of these changes include opportunities for innovative dental hygiene practice. In addition, the fundamental shift in health care delivery away from the medical paradigm of identifying and treating existing disease toward early intervention in prevention of disease processes has had collateral effects on dentistry and dental hygiene. Dental hygienists’ competencies are grounded in patient education, motivational interviewing, and preventive and prophylactic clinical services. This expertise has positioned the profession to play a pivotal role in efforts to improve the oral health of the US population. Dental hygienists are now more commonly viewed as primary preventive oral health specialists with separate and critical responsibilities in the oral health care continuum of care.

Read Full Article

Published on

The Post Star

The Saratoga Hospital Volunteer Guild has given the hospital $210,000, nearly half of which is helping to pay off the costs of new “smart” intravenous pumps…

…The number of new registered nurse graduates has nearly doubled from 2002 to 2018, according to a recent report from the University of Albany’s Center for Health Workforce Study.

The university surveys all of the RN educational programs in New York state each year to determine how many nurses graduate and how many find nursing jobs.

Read Full Article

Published on

Crain’s Health Pulse

Physicians completing residencies at New York hospitals are having little trouble finding work, with 94% of doctors searching for work saying they had at least one offer in 2018, according to a survey by University at Albany’s Center for Health Workforce Studies.

The annual questionnaire showed that half the doctors finishing residencies were women, while only 15% were black, Hispanic or American Indian compared with 33% of the U.S. population.

“We’ve made some great progress filling a gender gap, but we still have a ways to go with recruiting more underrepresented minorities into medicine,” said Jean Moore, director of the Center for Health Workforce Studies.

Read Full Article

Published on

The Altamont Enterprise

BERNE — Jill Martin, a nurse practitioner who made it her mission to bring medical care back to the Hilltowns, announced this week that her practice, Hilltown Healthcare, PLLC, will open its doors on Dec. 2, 2019.

Martin is certified through the American Nurses Credentialing Center and as of now is the sole certified medical practitioner at Hilltown Healthcare. She told The Enterprise in an email that she has been interviewing candidates interested in joining the team and plans to make a hiring decision “in the near future.”…

… The Health Resources and Services Administration website ranks the number of physicians as the highest-impact condition. Poverty, infant health, senior citizens, and travel time to the nearest source of care are all equal below that.

Hammond wrote that the Hilltowns submitted its application on Aug. 1. Because the Center for Health Workforce Studies requested, on behalf of the state’s health department, that the federal Health Resources and Services Administration expedite the application, it was approved on Oct. 2, just two months later. The designation does not need to be renewed.

Read Full Article

Published on

Dentistry Today

Many of the factual points Dr. Michael Davis made in his August 19 article, “Dental Hygienists Face Temp Employment Difficulties,” are well taken. But I believe that the outlook for the dental hygiene profession, viewed holistically from the national perspective, is not as dire as depicted. In addition, respectfully, some of the language used to describe the challenges to dental hygienists is quite strong in the absence of citations…

…Dental support organizations (DSOs) also offer opportunities for dental hygienists that may not exist in a traditional dental hygiene position in a private practice dental office. They allow for career growth beyond clinical practice for those who want to pursue a role in administration, for example. According to the Oral Health Workforce Research Center at the SUNY Albany School of Public Health, DSOs are attractive to dental hygienists who desire employee benefits such as health insurance and retirement plans.

Read Full Article

Published on

The Nation’s Health

The U.S. dental workforce is welcoming more women into its ranks, which could have implications for access to oral health care.

In July, the University of Albany’s Oral Health Workforce Research Center released a new study on the demographics of women in dentistry and the related potential impacts for underserved communities.

According to the study, in 2016, nearly 30% of all U.S. dentists were women, compared to 24% in 2010. Overall, women dentists were also younger and more diverse than men in the field, with higher proportions of black, Hispanic and foreign-trained dentists. Women dentists were also more likely to serve young patients, practice in urban areas and care for patients with public insurance coverage, such as Medicaid.

Read Full Article

Published on

Dentistry Today

Primary care postgraduate dental training programs supported by competitive Health Resources and Service Administration (HRSA) grant funding play a significant role in providing care to underserved populations, according to a study from the Oral Health Workforce Research Center (OHWRC) at the University at Albany’s Center for Health Workforce Studies…

…“While this research is limited to a subset of HRSA’s overall investments, the study clearly shows the impact of federal funding on building institutional capacity to produce a sufficient dental workforce to meet the demand in primary care dentistry,” said OHWRC investigator Elizabeth Mertz. “The graduates of these programs are contributing in large measure to the oral healthcare of vulnerable and underserved patients in the US.”

Read Full Article

Published on

Ithaca.com

An innovative training program bringing medical residents to Cayuga Medical Center in 2019 for their residencies will help attract new primary care physicians to the region. With more primary care physicians, patients will find it easier to schedule medical visits and enroll as new patients with medical practices…

…Tompkins and nearby counties face a growing shortage of primary care physicians. A 2017 study by the School of Public Health at the State University of New York at Albany found large differences in where primary care physicians practice in the eight-county Southern Tier region. The area’s urban counties of Tompkins, Broome and Chemung have one primary care physician for about every 900 residents. In the region’s five rural counties, there is one primary care physician for about every 1,700 residents. Community health planners predict a growing shortage of primary care doctors in all Southern Tier counties as the region’s existing physicians retire, and its demographics shift to an older population needing more primary health care services.

Read Full Article

Published on

Dentistry Today

Dentistry has seen significant changes in the demographics of those who practice, particularly when it comes to gender, according to the Oral Health Workforce Research Center (OHWRC) at the University at Albany’s Center for Health Workforce Studies (CHWS).

Collaborating with the ADA, the OHWRC studied differences in dental practice characteristics and service delivery by gender to anticipate changes that might affect the availability of dental services for underserved populations in the future.

Read Full Article

Published on

Becker’s Dental and DSO Review

More women are entering the dental field compared to past years, according to a study conducted by the American Dental Association and the University of Albany (N.Y.) Center for Health Workforce Studies.

The study, published July 11, evaluated the differences in dental practice characteristics and service delivery by gender.

Read Full Article