European Training Platform for Continuing Professional Development of Dental Hygienists Erasmus Project

Project Title

European Training Platform for Continuing Professional Development of Dental Hygienists

Project Key Action

This project related with these key action: Cooperation for innovation and the exchange of good practices

Project Action Type

This project related with this action type : Strategic Partnerships for vocational education and training

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2015

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Gender equality / equal opportunities; Health and wellbeing; Recognition, transparency, certification

Project Summary

1. Background
Oral health is a determinant factor for quality of life, essential for well-being, and an integral part of general health. According to the Council of European Chief Dental Officers, in the EU, the socio-economic burden of oral diseases is considerable: they affect the majority of school-aged children and adults and account for 5% of public health spending. Costs of traditional curative treatment have risen from €54bn in 2000 to €79bn in 2012 and are expected to rise up to €93bn by 2020.
Western European countries enjoy better oral health and longer life expectancy than the less wealthy countries of Central and Eastern Europe. The EU has, as one of its goals, the achievement of an equitable health status across Member States. Dental hygienist education is at the centre of any strategy to increase access to oral health care. Dental hygienists are able to provide preventive services outside of dentists’ offices or creating advanced-provider models that involve training hygienists to perform with an expanded scope of practice and less supervision.
Currently, the curriculum and the education for dental hygienist are different among EU-countries. Consequently, there is a need for concerted action to be undertaken across Europe to harmonize the knowledge and skills of dental hygienists for improving the oral health status of the population.
Innovative programs are showing that increased use of dental hygienists can promote access to oral health care, particularly for underserved populations, including children. Such access can reduce the incidence of serious tooth decay and other dental disease in vulnerable populations. There is clear evidence that in countries with dental hygienist profession the general dental health is considerable better than in countries lacking this profession.

2. Project Objectives
• Harmonizing the professional knowledge and skills of dental hygienists in EU-countries
• Demonstrating the importance and role of dental hygienists in society in order to introduce the education and profession of dental hygienists in EU countries lacking it.
• Strengthen the position of dental hygienist by encouraging the entrepreneurship activities.
• Promoting communication and mobility among the dental hygienist from various EU-nations.
• Implementing an efficient community-based learning model to enhance the health literacy of population and to demonstrate how the implementation of the model can help improve oral health of population, especially from socioeconomically deprived groups.

3. Participants
The partners combine their broad knowledge and expertise in education and oral health care for tackling the common challenges for creating an efficient ETP model. The participants represents 5 EU- member states and 3 oral health models, Nordic model, Sweden, South European model, Portugal and Greece, and Eastern European model, Romania. In addition countries with and without dental hygienists are represented in the project. Three levels are participating at the project: (1) European level – EDHF, National levels – four public universities, regional level – PTJ and AFRA.

4) The main activities that have been carried out in the Project are distributed in eight work packages:
WP1 – Inventory of needs and reference data
WP2 – Development of VET curriculum and training material
WP3 – ETP model integration
WP4 – Mobility and training activities
WP5 – Entrepreneurship for dental hygienists
WP6 – Dissemination and exploitation
WP7 – Quality assurance
WP8 – project management

5) Results and impact
This EU-project has resulted in a huge impact on the oral Health situation in Europé. The results have an obvious impact on the harmonization and recognition of dental hygienists skills and knowledge, and increase the mobility at national and transnational levels. The results also improve the oral health literacy of the population and increase community participation. The modules that have been created have a direct influence on both the education and continuing education of dental hygienists as well as on the education of e.g school children and different work places. Other health professionals can also benefit from these modules. The guidelines that have been created are important to standardize the education of dental hygienists. The dental hygienist profession has through this project been recognized and strengthened through Europé and the dental hygienist as the key provider of good oral health has also been recognized. Overall the project has contributed by giving prerequisites to reach the goal of the EU – to have an equal access to dental care and good oral health all across Europé.

6) Several long term benefits have been recognized throughout the project, e.g different modules that have been created in the project has also been integrated in the already existing curriculas, and the scientific articles will spread the knowledge and lead to further collaboration.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 407908,75 Eur

Project Coordinator

KAROLINSKA INSTITUTET & Country: SE

Project Partners

• UNIVERSIDADE DE LISBOA
• SC AFRA SRL
• UNIVERSITATEA DE MEDICINA SI FARMACIE VICTOR BABES TIMISOARA
• INSTITUTE OF ENTREPRENEURSHIP DEVELOPMENT
• European Dental Hygienists Federation
• Praktikertjänst AB
• UNIVERSITATEA DE MEDICINA SI FARMACIE’CAROL DAVILA’ DIN BUCURESTI