Medical-Dental Partnership Uses Epic Systems EHR for Integrated Care

Pacific Dental Services (PDS) has announced a partnership with MemorialCare to provide integrated care, enabling patients to receive oral healthcare and medical care in the same location through Epic Systems EHR.

This joint venture to support integrated, whole-person care will include the release of 25 fully integrated primary care/dental locations over the next five years and PDS-supported dental offices located within selected MemorialCare medical group facilities.

"Healthcare outcomes are vastly improved when providers have quick access to all relevant information on a patient," Judy Faulkner, founder and CEO of Epic, said in a press release. "Our partnership with Pacific Dental Services that achieved final implementation to their 900+ dental practices earlier this year was a significant step forward in linking dental and medical professionals. We're proud to be a part of extending that link to now include merging our software with dental and medical professionals under one roof.”

Research has shown that integration benefits care coordination for populations with unmet oral health needs and associated chronic diseases.

In the United States, two in five adults are impacted by gum disease, an early warning sign of several chronic diseases like diabetes, cardiovascular disease, or certain cancers. Integrated care will support more accessible communication between providers and dentists, allowing them to share potentially life-saving information about their shared patients, the press release stated.

"This unprecedented partnership is a natural extension of Pacific Dental Services' goal to bring to light the link between oral health and overall health – what we at PDS call The Mouth-Body Connection – in an effort to improve the health of patients," Stephen E. Thorne IV, founder and CEO of Pacific Dental Services, said in a press release.

"Because many systemic diseases, conditions, and even medications can affect a patient's oral health, we have long advocated for closer collaboration between medical and dental professionals. This partnership brings that to fruition."

The partnership aims to increase patient ownership of their health, allowing them to access acute health, primary health, and dental health history all in one location via the MyChart patient portal.

With both organizations on the Epic Systems platform, primary health and oral health clinicians can use the EHR to seamlessly access patient health information, past dental and medical visits, lab results, and prescriptions, creating a comprehensive picture of a patient's health for any provider they visit.

In alignment with its goal to further dental-medical integration, PDS launched an Epic EHR implementation across its almost 900 supported dental practices.

PDS converted more than 9.7 million patient records in slightly over two years from its practice management software to Epic.

Implementing the Epic EHR allowed PDS to advance oral-systemic care, the press release stated.

Almost immediately after implementation, PDS-supported dental professionals found that the integrated health records offered insight into overall patient health, resulting in more effective treatment plans.