A survey of hospital ambulatory dental programs in Massachusetts. Part 1: An overview.

Abstract

SUMMARYA mail survey of ambulatory dental programs at all 123 short‐stay hospitals in Massachusetts was conducted for the 1980 fiscal year. The major findings were as follows.Of the 122 responding hospitals, 105 (86%) reported having ambulatory dental visits, 2 1 (20%) of which had dental clinics. The remaining 84 (80%) hospitals provided dental care in surgical day care units, emergency rooms, or both, as did most hospitals with dental clinics. The 177,93 1 reported hospital ambulatory dental visits accounted for approximately 1.6% ambulatory dental visits in all settings, statewide. Approximately 69% of hospital ambulatory dental visits statewide took place in the 21 dental clinics, 21% in surgical day care units, and 10% in emergency rooms. Approxi‐ mately 66% of dental clinic visits were for gen‐ era1 dental care and represented less than 1% of ambulatory dental visits in all settings, statewide.Most hospitals with dental clinics were con‐ centrated in major urban centers. Hospitals in the Greater Boston area accounted for 75% of all ambulatory dental visits and 87% of dental clinic visits, statewide.To properly assess the hospital's role as a dental care resource to a community, general dental care services in community hospital dental clinics should be distinguished from other types of hospital dental care. Our study accomplished this by categorizing ambulatory dental visits according to the types of services provided, the types of hospitals at which they were provided, and the hospital settings in which they were provided.The data suggest that the significance of hospital ambulatory dental programs is not in the amount of dental care that they provide statewide but the types of services offered and their importance to dentally underserved inner city communities.