DentaQuest, national oral health network announce fresh path forward to expand oral health impact
National network evolves to best deliver on progress and equity goals
Health starts in the mouth. In fact, people cannot truly be healthy without addressing their oral health. But our health care system is not designed to help people maintain a healthy mouth. For too long the health care system has functioned as a complex series of locked doors and too many people are shut out with no keys. We need a new way forward to achieve our mission – to improve the oral health of all.
As 2020 nears, the Oral Health 2020 Network – a national network of oral health advocates seeded with funding and support from the DentaQuest Foundation – continues to grow in strength and purpose. Today, the network includes more than 1400 changemakers at the local, state, and national levels.
In recognition of its vision and purpose, the Oral Health 2020 Network is now OPEN, or the Oral Health Progress and Equity Network.
OPEN continues to evolve toward a self-sustaining model and is uniquely positioned to take on America’s oral health challenges so that everyone has an equitable chance to thrive.
The work of OPEN over the past seven years has helped to inspire and inform strategies beyond the 2020 goals. Now, OPEN is transforming to multiply our collective impact, to reach for resolutions to complex systemic issues, to change public perception, and ultimately to address health equity nationwide.
In the midst of great change across the health care industry, DentaQuest remains committed to investments in grantmaking and lasting systems change. We see a bright future moving forward with OPEN in new and different ways, collectively working to shift the paradigm of oral health benefits, care delivery, and social change.
For more on OPEN and to stay involved in the national oral health conversation, check out @OPENoralhealth on Twitter.
About DentaQuest
DentaQuest Based in Boston, Mass., DentaQuest (www.dentaquest.com) is a leading national oral health company and the largest in the Medicaid space. Along with its charitable DentaQuest Foundation, its clinical DentaQuest Care Group and its educational DentaQuest Institute, its mission is to improve the oral health of all. Follow DentaQuest on Twitter @DentaQuest, Facebook at www.facebook.com/DentaQuest and LinkedIn at www.linkedin.com/company/DentaQuest, and stay up to date at WhatsNew.DentaQuest.com.