The Baccalaureate-Educated Dental Hygienist.

Unlabelled: The baccalaureate degree as entry level education will prepare dental hygienists to meet the basic challenges of evolving patient oral health care needs.

Background: The nature of health care is changing because of economic and societal developments. For example, the Affordable Care Act is allowing more individuals the opportunity to seek care.

Point-of-care HbA1c screening predicts diabetic status of dental patients.

Purpose: Mutual production of proinflammatory cytokines causes a deleterious cyclic relationship between uncontrolled diabetes and periodontal disease. The prevalence of diabetes is escalating out of control. Early detection of pre-diabetes and diabetes may respectively prevent or delay disease onset and eliminate or decrease complications.

Dental Team Experience (DTE): a five year experience.

Several European countries have interprofessional training for health care professional students, including dental and dental hygiene students. However, very little training exists in the U.S.

Development and status of the advanced dental hygiene practitioner.

Advanced dental hygiene practitioners (ADHPs), members of the oral health care team, bring care to persons disenfranchised from adequate dental services. ADHPs are licensed and provide the traditional educational, preventive and therapeutic dental hygiene services, plus diagnostic, prescriptive and minimally invasive restorative services. ADHPs work in collaboration with all members of the dental team, referring patients in need of services outside of their scope directly to dentists or other health care providers.