Successful achievement of improved oral health for New York residents will require multiple solutions with a diverse array of engaged partners. Legislation to provide for dental hygienists to have collaborative practice agreements with dentists, also part of DHASNY’s agenda, has been introduced in the state Assembly . DHASNY believes the addition of collaborative practice to dentistry will make dental care more accessible by improving access to care, will enhance the workforce relationships, and help meet currently unmet oral health needs of many New Yorkers.
Redefining the Definition of Dental Hygiene Practice
Dental hygiene has long been dependent on an arbitrary laundry list of services in defining the scope of practice. That list, in the midst of growing technology and an oral health crisis, serves to unnecessarily restrict the provision of basic preventive, educational and therapeutic services. Additionally, restrictive supervision of the practice of dental hygiene adds to the inability of qualified, educated, licensed dental hygienists to provide services to those unserved by the current oral health care delivery system. Proposed legislation for collaborative practice includes, under Section 1, a definition of dental hygiene practice to more practically reflect the work of hygienists. Read more at: http://assembly.state.ny.us/leg/?default_fld=&bn=A00111%09%09&Summary=Y&Memo=Y&Text=Y
Block anesthesia
Forty-four of fifty states currently allow dental hygienists to deliver local anesthetic, and all but three of those – Maryland, South Carolina and New York - allow both local infiltration and block anesthesia injections. Our practitioners tell us that the delivery of block anesthesia is imperative to pain-free delivery of dental hygiene care, particularly in the area of non-surgical periodontal treatment.
Legislation that was on DHASNY’s agenda, to provide for a limited permit for qualified dental hygienists, was signed in to law in 2010. Procedures are available from the Office of the Professions of the New York State Education Department to apply for limited permits for dental hygienists
