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Wisconsin Collaborative for Healthcare Quality to Report Oral Health Quality Measures
ForwardDental first practice in state to join WCHQ and participate in quality improvement collaboratives and public reporting
The Wisconsin Collaborative for Healthcare Quality (WCHQ), an organization dedicated to helping health care professionals improve the quality and affordability of health care through collaboration and public reporting, announced they are preparing to report the first set of metrics specifically designed for oral health. WCHQ will be the first regional improvement collaborative in the country to collect and publicly report quality-related data from dentists.
ForwardDental is the first dental practice in the state to join WCHQ and will be the first to collect and report the new measures.
“WCHQ has shown empirically, observationally and anecdotally that ‘what gets measured and reported publicly, improves faster,’” according to WCHQ President/CEO Chris Queram. “We are pleased ForwardDental will be the first practice in the state to work with our team. It is an exciting first step to see dentists work with our organization and join physician practices and health systems to set a new standard of care in a state with a reputation for delivering some of the highest quality, safest care in the nation.”
Queram said the new oral health initiative is consistent with WCHQ’s goal of leveraging its proven track record of accomplishment in health care clinics and hospitals to other settings of care consistent with a focus on the “whole person” and care coordination.
WCHQ’s goal is to align the oral health measures to specific processes that are common to all dental offices to benchmark performance, then to publicly report their progress on www.wchq.org. The new dental measures will focus on prevention, including, ensuring that new patients under the age of 18 have received a sealant, fluoride treatment, and have had a caries risk assessment.
“Employers, insurers and physicians know good oral health care delivered on a regular schedule can prevent many downstream health care issues,” Queram said. “They will appreciate having access to data related to the quality of oral care being delivered to their employees, subscribers and patients.”
ForwardDental meets the rigorous requirements for accreditation by the American Association for Ambulatory Health Care (AAAHC). With 33 practice locations, ForwardDental is one of the state’s largest dental groups.
Jesley Ruff, DDS, MPH, American Dental Partners senior vice president and chief professional officer, who will join WCHQ’s Quality Planning Committee, said their dental health professionals have been working together on quality improvement projects, but they were seeking an outside partner that could support and expand their quality improvement initiatives, while creating a state benchmark.
Robert Trettin, DDS, is president of ForwardDental.
“Oral health is inexplicitly tied to good overall health. We know poor dental hygiene is linked to an increase in chronic and acute diseases,” according to Trettin. “One way to ensure we are meeting our goal of delivering high-quality care to our patients is to partner with a well-established and experienced team of professionals who are experts in quality improvement, measurement and public reporting. We are extremely excited about this partnership.”
About WCHQ
Established in 2003, the Wisconsin Collaborative for Healthcare Quality is a voluntary, non-profit consortium of organizations committed to publicly reporting comparative measures of performance to catalyze improvements in the quality and affordability of healthcare in our state.
About ForwardDental
With 33 dental practices across Wisconsin, ForwardDental is committed to providing affordable, high-quality oral health care services and excellent clinical care.
