Carilion Clinic and Delta Dental announce new partnership and funding agreement

(Photo: Haley Conner/WFXR)

by: Haley Connor

Posted: Jan 18, 2023 / 04:07 PM EST

Updated: Jan 18, 2023 / 04:07 PM EST

ROANOKE, Va. (WFXR) — Carilion Clinic and Delta Dental Foundations announced their partnership to expand pediatric oral health care in the region.

According to the partners, the new partnership and funding agreement will expand children’s oral health care services through a pediatric dental residency program at Carilion.

Delta Dental is funding a $2 million endowment to provide annual support for the program. The program and funding were both created in response to the nationwide shortage of oral health services for underserved and vulnerable populations.

Carilion says the addition of this program will allow the clinic to provide dental care for thousands of additional children each year. The residency program will be located inside Carilion Clinic Dental Care at Tanglewood. They say this will also greatly affect the number of patients they will be able to see on a daily basis.

“It’s incumbent of us as a provider community to do all we can to teach and educate parents on how to take care of their children, and to provide an access for them to make that easier for them to take care of their children’s oral health,” said Lee Jones, the Chief of Dentistry at Carilion Clinic.

Residents will be able to treat patients under faculty supervision once they start the program. They hope that once the residents have completed the program they will stay in the area to help grow longterm workforce development.

They say that once the program gets underway they will be able to generate 4 board-eligible pediatric dentists per year. The program is a 2-year residency and they plan to start with 2 residents per year.

They are currently working on the accreditation process to get approval to start the program.

They hope to get the residency program started in July 2024.

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