Background The primary customers of a Support Center are our dental programs and personnel throughout an IHS Area or broad geographic region.

The primary customers are not dental patients or Tribes.

The primary function of a Support Center is not the direct provision of clinical

credit:

care.

Well-designed Support Centers will indirectly impact upon patientsÂ’ oral health by directly addressing the perceived needs of dental personnel and Area or regional dental programs.

Purpose Support Centers will combine existing resources and infrastructure with IHS Headquarters (HQ) and IHS Area resources in order to address the broad challenges and opportunities associated with IHS preventive and clinical dental programs.

Support Centers will restore lost administrative and support infrastructure, and meet the perceived needs of dental programs on a regional or IHS Area basis.

In short, Support Centers empower the dental programs they serve.

Proposed local programs focused on clinical or preventive care alone, with no concomitant focus on a regional or Area support-oriented component for the dental program, while well-intentioned and of potential value, are not responsive to this announcement or to the Support Center project.

• Centers will assess the needs of the dental programs served.

In order to be responsive to the perceived needs of the dental personnel throughout an Area or region, perceived needs must be systematically assessed.

Initial and periodic recurring structured needs assessments or other appraisals of perceived needs of the programs and personnel to be served are essential.

Successful proposals will either document the perceived needs of Area programs and personnel, or outline how Area needs will be assessed.

• Centers will provide technical assistance and resources for local and Area clinic based and community based oral health promotion/disease prevention (HP/DP) initiatives.

• Centers will send an appropriate representative or representatives to national Support Centers project meetings convened by IHS HQ DOH.

Such meetings will be convened annually, as deemed necessary by HQ DOH.

All centers are expected to reserve sufficient funds to send a representative or representatives to these meetings.

• Centers will promote the coordination of research, demonstration projects, and studies relating to the causes, diagnosis, treatment, control, and prevention of oral disease.

This will be addressed through the collection, analysis, and dissemination of data or other methodology deemed appropriate by the IHS DOH.

• Each center will collaborate with IHS HQ DOH on one ongoing national initiative.

Those centers wishing to identify or discuss appropriate collaborative national efforts are encouraged to contact the designated Program Official for this Support Centers project.

• Centers are strongly encouraged to provide technical assistance and resources for local and Area clinical programs.

• Centers are strongly encouraged to provide technical assistance and resources for continuing education opportunities for Area dental personnel.

• Centers are strongly encouraged to address Early Childhood Caries (ECC).

Interventions must include an evaluation process assessing outcomes in addition to process (that is, an assessment of actual prevalence of disease over the course of the intervention, in addition to counts or assessments of activities or services and products provided to clientele).

• Centers are strongly encouraged to monitor the prevalence and severity of ECC.