View full sizeDental hygiene students work on patients in a dental hygiene clinic at Northampton Community College in Bethlehem Township, Pa. The facility is scheduled to move to the Fowler South Side Center in January 2013. A new dental clinic is headed to Bethlehem’s Southside, bringing pricey oral care at affordable prices to a high-need population.
Northampton Community College is moving its dental hygiene program to its Fowler Family Southside Center, where it will share space with St. Luke’s Hospital Health Network’s dental clinic.
The space needs significant work, so officials expect the clinic to open in January 2013. The college is preparing to seek construction bids, and St. Luke’s will share the cost based on the amount of space leased.
The college offers dental cleanings at its Bethlehem Township, Pa., campus while St. Luke’s operates a clinic in its Union Station building on Southside, which will complement the St. Luke’s medical clinic in the Fowler building at 511 E. Third St.
The partnership will expose NCC dental hygiene students to a more diverse population with more complex dental needs than suburban areas, said Terry Sigal Greene, director of the college’s dental hygiene program.
“The Southside is a federally qualified area that is under-served for dentistry,” she said.
The third-floor clinic will bring the Fowler Family Center almost to capacity, said Paul Pierpoint, dean of the South Side campus.
“It’s a perfect fit, a really solid educational opportunity for our students,” Pierpoint said.
St. Luke’s was attracted by the opportunity to create a partnership that fosters collaborative learning between health care providers and encourages a team approach to dental health care, said Mohammed Qahash, the network’s dental program director. St. Luke’s clinic offers emergency dental treatments for all ages, orthodontics, endodontics, restorative and aesthetic dentistry, including prostheses, as well as specialty oral and maxillofacial surgery, he said.
“Joining the dental hygiene program will better address oral hygiene needs of the community and it will significantly improve access to preventive dental services for patients of all ages,” Qahash said.
St. Luke’s and the college will share a waiting and front-desk area and maintain separate treatment areas. The college will have 20 dental chairs, an X-ray area and a lab classroom.
“Our students will hopefully be able to spend time on rotations and observe dental residents,” Sigal Greene said. “They will get to observe oral surgeries, root canals and more extensive dental treatments.”
NCC’s clinic serves about 1,400 patients a year and officials expect that to continue. St. Luke’s serves more than 15,000 patients a year and the new space will allow them to expand.
The 20 dental hygiene chairs will help St. Luke’s handle follow-up visits effectively and it will give the hygienists-in-training educational opportunities, Qahash said.
“We are fully anticipating demand will exceed capacity,” Pierpoint said.
Hospital clinics often have a patient backlog because medical assistance is not accepted at most general dentistry practices, Sigal Greene said. Northampton can start the process with a cleaning and X-rays and devise a care plan before referring patients to the clinic up the hall, she said.
The college charges patients a one-time $25 fee covering cleanings — even if it takes several visits — limited X-rays and fluoride treatment. Once NCC’s clinic is established, Sigal Greene hopes to partner with St. Luke’s medical clinic to bring dental health awareness programming to it and perhaps even do rotations at the hospital.
“There is such a connection between oral health and full systemic health,” she said.
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