ECHM Town Hall

Our project of starting a community dental clinic is coming together, and is set to open to the public in February of 2014. On December 5th our group presented our progress thus far to faculty, students and staff in a Town Hall meeting. We wanted to give everyone an overview of whose involved, what's being planned, the location, population we'll be serving and how it's all going to come together. 

Kara, our project leader kicked off our presentation with introductions, and a summary of how we got involved, and an overview of what we all would be discussing. JoAnna then took it from there, discussing the surrounding area, and the need for a dental home at 1500 Broadway. She presented photos of the area, and elaborated on the fact that this is an underserved area. I discussed the collaborations that will be occurring at the clinic with LakeShore Behavioral, Catholic Health, Erie County and UB School of Public Health. We're hoping to be making many interdepartmental referrals, and seeing a different population pool than at Squire hall, which will be a great experience for students. Richie then engaged the audience with photos of our equipment and the blueprints and architectural renderings of the proposed facility.  Josh discussed when this would all be happening, and our plans for marketing and attracting patients. Since we're in an underserved area, we're expecting a large percentage of emergency-walk ins but we need to be prepared for many scenarios. By participating in the Buffalo Clean Sweep Initiatives, and marketing within the community we hope build some hype in the community prior to opening. Last but definitely not least, Hoda closed out the presentation with a discussion of how this clinic would fit into our schedules, what procedures would be done and our goals of going paperless. We plan to provide a broad range of palliative care procedures at first, however the vision is to become a comprehensive care clinic. More complex cases will be referred to Squire Hall, but simple operative, extractions and other procedures such as those could be performed on site. The logistics of how the rotation will work are being decided. Currently, the thought of having a vertically set up rotation, in which students rotate once a week through the clinic for the semester is gaining popularity as it would provide students with an experience that we do not already have. 

While we have made a great deal of progress, this is still a work in progress and the questions we received were all a great help. We're very excited to gain access to the building in January and begin our move in. If there are any other questions or concerns they can be directly to any of us via our emails. Hope everyone is as excited as we are about this new venture!