MO Healthy Smiles

Gracehill Head Start to Be Part of PSP

Dental providers, including four dentists, two dental hygienists and six dental assistants were calibrated for PSP.  Many will be helping to bring the PSP to Grace Hill Head Start children.  The calibration was conducted at Gracehill Murphy O'Fallon Neighborhood Health Center in St. Louis.

Grace Hill Neighborhood Health Centers, a federally qualified health center, was established in  1906.  It provides professionally directed primary and preventive health care, including dental, through five community health centers serving low income and uninsured residents in the City of St. Louis and St. Louis County.

The photo shows some of the participants from GHNHC as well as Dr. Ronnie Drake, Pat Lepp, RDH from the Missouri Dental Board, and DHSS Oral Health Consultant, Diann Bomkamp, RDH.

St. Louis Pediatric Dentist Promotes PSP with DHSS

On Sept. 7th, Dr. Craig Hollander, a pediatric dentist from St. Louis, presented a workshop at the Greater St. Louis Dental Society's annual Mid-Continent Dental Congress to teach oral health professionals tips on how to better treat very young children and educate their parents and caregivers early about the importance of oral health.  At this workshop Dr. Hollander and DHSS Oral Health Consultant, Diann Bomkamp, RDH, promoted the PSP to over fifty dentists and hygienists, twenty additional dental staff members and dental hygiene students from St. Louis Community College at Forest Park. The purpose of the meeting was to encourage more dental professionals to see children at a younger age by using the "Knee to Knee" and the Lift the Lip" technique and to recruit them for the PSP.

Photo shows dental hygiene students, Hetel White (far left) and Michelle Patton (far right), with Oral Health Consultant, Diann Bomkamp, and pediatric dentist, Dr. Craig Hollander.

 

St. Louis County Department of Health Staff Introduced to PSP

On Sept. 6, 2007, dental and medical staff of the St. Louis County Department of Health were introduced to the PSP and discussed how oral health connects to total health.  Dr. Nita Fowler Johnson, the Chief of Dental Services, manages the four county-run dental sites including the John C. Murphy Health Center, the North Central Community Health Center, the South County Health Center, and the Buzz Westfall Justice Center (county jail). DHSS is investigating how the St. Louis County DOH can enhance the PSP by being a source for dental referrals.