Health Care Innovation Awards Round Two: The Trustees of Columbia University in the City of New York Project Profile

Project Title: ""MySmileBuddy": Demonstrating the Value of Technology-assisted Non-surgical Care Management in Young Children"
Geographic Reach: New York
Estimated Funding Amount: $3,870,446

Summary:

The Trustees of the Columbia University in the City of New York project will test a model that uses family-level, peer-counseled, and technology-assisted behavioral risk reduction strategies, aims to divert children with early- and advanced-stage early childhood caries (ECC) from high-cost surgical dental rehabilitation (DR) to low-cost non-surgical disease management (NSDM). Together, parents and community health workers (CHWs) will use MySmileBuddy (MSB), a mobile tablet-based health technology, to plan, implement, and monitor positive oral health behaviors, including dietary control and use of fluorides, which arrest ECC's progression. MSB was designed with a strong theoretical basis, which applies key principles of risk-based triage, early intervention, individualization, and motivational interviewing. MSB is designed to enhance parental knowledge, skills, and self-efficacy to reduce caries-related risk factors, proportionate to their child's ECC experience. CHWs will meet in person with parents of children with early-stage ECC bimonthly for 1 year, and with parents of children with advanced-stage ECC weekly for the first 4 weeks, then bimonthly thereafter for the remainder of the year. Additionally, CHWs will provide tailored telephone intervention between in-person meetings to provide additional support and reinforce behavior change goals. CHWs will also assist parents in scheduling semiannual dental examinations at affiliated sites.

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