Dental Quality Alliance Virtual Conference will explore disruption to the dental health care system

This year’s Dental Quality Alliance Virtual Conference will be a digital live event, offering an opportunity for participants to learn about the disruptive forces within the health care system, especially in the scale of sweeping changes in the past year and their impacts on health outcomes.

The 5th biannual conference, titled Disruption for Change: The Impact on Oral Healthcare, is designed to address different ways that disruption has affected the oral health care system and how the changes can guide dentists to continue providing optimal oral care in today’s environment, according to Marie Schweinebraten, D.M.D., chair of the DQA’s education committee.

“As we all know, this past year has been one that no one could have ever foreseen,” said Dr. Schweinebraten. “Many factors, COVID-19 primary among them, created crises that affected dentistry at all levels. The DQA’s mission and goals have not changed. If anything, the pandemic has only clarified the urgency of our mission. Improving outcomes, whether it addresses the number of tests done, to the vaccine being distributed, all involve measurement and quality improvement, which is especially important during a pandemic to improve health outcomes. Educating members of the profession so that they recognize this is vital.”

Registration is open for the conference, which will be held May 19-21 between 9 a.m. and noon Central each day. If a participant cannot view a live session, they will be recorded and available to those who have registered.

The keynote speakers include Tom Price, M.D., former U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services; Roger Levin, D.D.S., founder and CEOof the Levin Group, a leading dental management consulting firm; and Marko Vujicic, Ph.D., chief economist and vice president of the ADA’s Health Policy Institute.

In March, more speakers were added to the lineup, including:

• Nathan Suter, D.D.S, CEO of Access Teledentisty and honoree of ADA's 2020 Top 10 Dentists Under 10 Years in practice.
• Hamed Abbaszadegan, M.D., a double board-certified physician in the fields of internal medicine and clinical informatics. He is the Program Director for the Clinical Informatics Fellowship Program at the University of Arizona College of Medicine – Phoenix.
• Renaisa S. Anthony, M.D., cofounder and CEO of nonprofit MOMentum Park and personally and professionally dedicated to achieving health equity by improving the health and lives of underserved and low-resourced communities through medicine, public health, policy and technology.

The full list of speakers is available, as well as registration information, on the conference website.

Early-bird pricing for the conference ends March 31.

“Conference participants will be able to recognize the emerging disruptive forces impacting the health care system and describe the impact of economic disruption on practices,” Dr. Levin said.

Dr. Schweinebraten added that there is something for everyone in this conference and the timing could not be better.

“We are all seeking ways to overcome the disruption we have seen over the last year and recognizing how to do that includes assessing the delivery systems from multiple angles: technology, the market and social aspects,” she said. “Data and outcomes, which include measurement and quality improvement, are an integral part of overcoming those challenges.”

CE credit will be awarded for attending the conference and early-bird pricing is available through March 31.

More information about the conference, including a preliminary schedule, is available at ADA.org/DQAConference .

The Dental Quality Alliance, convened by the ADA on behalf of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, is an organization of major stakeholders in oral health care delivery that uses a collaborative approach to develop oral health care measures.

To learn more about the Dental Quality Alliance and its work, visit ADA.org/dqa .