“We’re meeting a need that is not being met,”

The thing that will help our patients is having the medical service that they need available at the most affordable price , in walkable distance from their house or place of work, done by the Provider who has the training to perform that service in a competent and professional manner.That is what the Dental Therapist service provides to the Alaskan Native community.It is a good analogy to that which we are trying to provide our under served communities It was based on a very succesful program from New Zealand where the Native community was not getting the basic dental care tha theyt needed because of lack of trained Providers.If my memory serves me like the program in Alaska it was also important to the community that they serve that the therapists be Maori if possible for a number of reasons .To provide positive role models, and to provide a familiar face after a history of paternalistic health care ,being the most important.The Dental Therapists join the Community Health Aides in the remote communities to provide front line primary care where before there was none. They are taught , like us to recognize when they can do routine therapy and when they need to refer to 4 year trained dentists , available for immediate consultation by telemedicine in the Big Smoke . The Alaska Native Health Care system is truly a wonderful model for the delivery of health care in this country to the community that they serve.While working there I often thought that this is the model that we should be looking to for a national health care system with its mix of community and patient empowerment,stress on preventative care  and taking the medicine to the people where they live and delivering it in a culturally sensitive fashion where possible.Like us, the system seeks to work from low tech (doctors visits on the day you need them with your doctor, routine screening) to high tech(surgical procedures and hospitalizations when needed)They seek to treat the whole person with integrated mental and social services and complementary and traditional medicine and the Providers are all talking to each other , not spending time and energy on protecting their bit of turf.AAAAh to dreamDiane