By Dr. Mark Doherty, Executive Director, DentaQuest Institute
The DentaQuest Institute had the great honor of hosting the John Rossetti Memorial dinner at the 2011 National Primary Oral Health Conference. John was a personal friend and a great advisor to the DentaQuest Institute and its Safety Net Solutions program. He was one of the program’s first Expert Advisors – our elite faculty of experienced public health dentists who are mentoring safety net dental programs across the United States. It was a great privilege to host the memorial dinner and to endow our annual Centers of Excellence Awards with John’s name.
The John Rossetti Centers for Excellence awards recognize elite safety net dental programs of 2011– programs that displayed tremendous leadership and excellence in oral health practice management, greatly improving access to care and the oral health status of their patients. The recipients of this award provided the leadership and initiative necessary to make positive change “stick” within their dental programs.
The five 2011 Centers of Excellence partnered with Safety Net Solutions technical assistance and practice management consulting over the course of the past year. They were challenged to institute difficult changes with the goals of increasing access, promoting financial sustainability and improving oral health outcomes.
The five programs selected this year truly deserve the “Excellent” title – they have outstanding evaluation data to show that the changes they implemented have lead to measurable improvements in many areas of the dental program.
The 2011 Safety Net Solutions Centers of Excellence are:
- HealthCare Connection in Ohio
- Native American Health Center in California
- Dental Center of NorthWest Ohio
- Harbor Health in Massachusetts
- Wake Health Services in North Carolina
We commend each of these Centers for Excellence, and thank all of the safety net dental programs for being examples of sustainable dental care in their communities. I think John Rossetti would be proud of all of them.