(BIVN) – A tele-dentistry pilot came to the Ulu Wini Public Housing facility in Kona over the fall break. This video news release was shared by the West Hawaii Community Health Center:

West Hawaii Community Health Center (WHCHC) is taking advantage of the Fall school break and bringing their mobile Tele-Dentistry Program team to serve the keiki community at Ulu Wini Public Housing in Kona.

This tele-dentistry pilot project, which began 2 years ago, is funded through a grant provided by Hawaii Dental Services Foundation. West Hawaii Community Health Center targets preschoolers in programs such as Head Start and Tutu and Me, providing dental screenings in the field to preschoolers. The successful WHCHC program is quickly becoming a model for other underserved dental outreach across the State and the state program is looking to expand onto Maui in 2018.

Today and tomorrow at Ulu Wini, the WHCHC dental team is expanding its teledentistry program beyond just preschoolers and providing dental treatment for children up to 12 years old right at the housing site. The mobile dental team unpacks the dental chair, starts up the portable x-ray machine, lays out the sterilized dental trays and gets to work providing dental cleanings, fluoride varnish treatments, sealants, x-rays, and images are taken of the child’s mouth using an oral camera. The dental staff is keeping electronic records of all the work done on each child that is digitally sent to the WHCHC dentists for review.

The hope of this pilot tele-dentistry project is to remove barriers that make it difficult for this underserved population to receive good oral care and also by being on-property, transportation difficulties are removed and services are brought directly to a critical sector of the community.