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An Experience of Public Dental Care during the COVID-19 Pandemic: Reflection and Analysis

Since its emergence in China, the COVID-19 pandemic has become the number 1 health challenge in the world with all affected countries trying to learn from each other’s experiences. When it comes to health services, dental care does not seem to be a priority area, despite the fact that it is among th...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Nemeth, Orsolya, Orsos, Mercedesz, Simon, Fanni, Gaal, Peter
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7922253/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33669480
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph18041915
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author Nemeth, Orsolya
Orsos, Mercedesz
Simon, Fanni
Gaal, Peter
author_facet Nemeth, Orsolya
Orsos, Mercedesz
Simon, Fanni
Gaal, Peter
author_sort Nemeth, Orsolya
collection PubMed
description Since its emergence in China, the COVID-19 pandemic has become the number 1 health challenge in the world with all affected countries trying to learn from each other’s experiences. When it comes to health services, dental care does not seem to be a priority area, despite the fact that it is among the highest risk medical specialisations in terms of spreading the infection. Using the Department of Community Dentistry of Semmelweis University as a case study, the objective of this paper is to introduce and analyze the system and organizational level measures, which have been implemented in dental care in Hungary during the first months of the COVID-19 outbreak. The system level measures to promote social distancing, to reduce the use of health services and to protect high risk health professionals, together with the deployment of protective equipment and the reorganization of patient pathways at the organizational level proved to be effective in keeping the outbreak in control. There are two, less frequently mentioned ingredients of successful coping with the COVID-19 challenge. First, mental health support is at least as important as physical protection. Second, most of the interventions do not require big financial investments, but behavioural change, which in turn requires leadership and change management skills.
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spelling pubmed-79222532021-03-03 An Experience of Public Dental Care during the COVID-19 Pandemic: Reflection and Analysis Nemeth, Orsolya Orsos, Mercedesz Simon, Fanni Gaal, Peter Int J Environ Res Public Health Article Since its emergence in China, the COVID-19 pandemic has become the number 1 health challenge in the world with all affected countries trying to learn from each other’s experiences. When it comes to health services, dental care does not seem to be a priority area, despite the fact that it is among the highest risk medical specialisations in terms of spreading the infection. Using the Department of Community Dentistry of Semmelweis University as a case study, the objective of this paper is to introduce and analyze the system and organizational level measures, which have been implemented in dental care in Hungary during the first months of the COVID-19 outbreak. The system level measures to promote social distancing, to reduce the use of health services and to protect high risk health professionals, together with the deployment of protective equipment and the reorganization of patient pathways at the organizational level proved to be effective in keeping the outbreak in control. There are two, less frequently mentioned ingredients of successful coping with the COVID-19 challenge. First, mental health support is at least as important as physical protection. Second, most of the interventions do not require big financial investments, but behavioural change, which in turn requires leadership and change management skills. MDPI 2021-02-16 2021-02 /pmc/articles/PMC7922253/ /pubmed/33669480 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph18041915 Text en © 2021 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Article
Nemeth, Orsolya
Orsos, Mercedesz
Simon, Fanni
Gaal, Peter
An Experience of Public Dental Care during the COVID-19 Pandemic: Reflection and Analysis
title An Experience of Public Dental Care during the COVID-19 Pandemic: Reflection and Analysis
title_full An Experience of Public Dental Care during the COVID-19 Pandemic: Reflection and Analysis
title_fullStr An Experience of Public Dental Care during the COVID-19 Pandemic: Reflection and Analysis
title_full_unstemmed An Experience of Public Dental Care during the COVID-19 Pandemic: Reflection and Analysis
title_short An Experience of Public Dental Care during the COVID-19 Pandemic: Reflection and Analysis
title_sort experience of public dental care during the covid-19 pandemic: reflection and analysis
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7922253/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33669480
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph18041915
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