Establishing Readiness of Dental Professionals in Practice-Based Research and Inter-Professional Care

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Project Summary Practice-based research (PBR) has demonstrated effectiveness to integrate evidence-based care into clinical practice, enhance the generalizability of research findings and conduct longitudinal studies not possible through traditional randomized controlled studies. The PBR Networks (PBRN) in medicine began in 1970 and have played a crucial role in advancing medical research findings and translating research evidence to practice settings to enhance patient outcomes. The National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research (NIDCR) established the Dental Practice-Based Research Network in 2005 and it is now considered to be the largest dental PBRN in the world. However, PBR experiences have yet to become part of the dental predoctoral/postdoctoral curriculum. According to NIDCR, it is essential to ‘engage dental students in research activities and incorporate evidence-based principles into the dental curriculum to enhance their critical thinking skills to evaluate and incorporate new knowledge into practice.’ In this application, the Indiana University (IU) School of Dentistry (IUSD) investigators with expertise in basic science, PBR, informatics, and salivary diagnostics have established collaborations with the Indiana Clinical and Translational Science Institute (CTSI), IU School of Medicine (IUSM), Purdue College of Pharmacy, Regenstrief Institute, Inc. and Indiana Health Information Exchange to advance clinical research training of dental clinical faculty and trainees, and strengthen research mentoring partnership amongst students, clinical faculty and researchers. We will advance knowledge of salivary and serum biomarkers in identifying dental patients susceptible to Sjögren’s Disease (SD), thus improving patient outcomes and management of patients at risk for SD and manage through interprofessional communication and collaboration of dental clinicians (DC), pharmacists, rheumatologists, and patients. This application is significant because it seeks to 1) advance the knowledge and skills of next-generation DCs to conduct and lead PBR, 2) facilitate interprofessional communication and care via virtual health platforms to address dental patients’ conditions such as SD that require multidisciplinary expertise for timely diagnosis and management and 3) develop a salivary hypofunction index in combination with salivary biomarkers to detect patients susceptible to SD thus improving shared decision making and management of patients at risk for SD. The outcomes include measurable increases in DC students and faculty completing clinical research and mentoring training and participation in the proposed PBR study, validation of biomarkers for early detection of SD in PBR settings, and improvement in coordinating care with other health care providers. The proposed research is significant because it lays the foundation for multidisciplinary teams to diagnose and manage individuals affected with SD in community practice settings and reduce current delays in diagnosis due to fragmented and siloed dental-medical care.