Delta Dental of WI

Delta helps ease shortage of dentists

Delta Dental Plan of Wisconsin recently announced a gift of $1.52 million to the Marquette University School of Dentistry. One million dollars will be directed to create an endowment for the area of Dental Informatics; $500,000 will be used to create an endowment for the new dental practice management curriculum; and $20,000 will provide current-use funding for technology upgrades.
This is Delta Dental's second gift to the new School of Dentistry. In 2000, Delta Dental made an initial investment of $1.1 million in the school's Dental Informatics Center and computer lab. Delta Dental's commitments helped the School of Dentistry meet its fundraising goal for the new building and receive a $1 million challenge grant from the Kresge Foundation.
"Delta Dental is pleased to provide additional support for the initiatives of the Marquette University School of Dentistry," commented Dennis Brown, president and CEO of Delta Dental. "The school's new curriculum aided by the latest in technology will help dentists to maximize efficiencies in their practices and also will help to address the crucial issue of fewer dentists available to meet the oral health care needs of the state."
Dental Informatics is an exciting new field that combines dentistry and computers to improve dental practice, research, and program administration. Specialists in Dental Informatics research and apply cutting-edge computer applications, such as decision support systems, computer-based oral health records, image processing and analysis programs, and teledentistry systems, to solve real-world problems in dentistry. Brown added, "We are very proud of our association with Marquette's work in the area of informatics as it holds the potential to improve patient access to the highest quality care and expert consultation from just about anywhere in the state."
"Marquette University School of Dentistry is enormously grateful for Delta Dental of Wisconsin's continued support of the dental school," said William Lobb, DDS, dean of the dental school. "Naturally we take pride in the new building that we call home, but our real success has been our ability to reorient the way that dental education is taught. It begins with our pre-doctoral dental students and now has the potential to extend to practitioners throughout the state. As Wisconsin's only dental school, we have a responsibility to analyze the trends in oral health today and in the future and provide leadership to help meet the State's most pressing oral health needs. That said, we are confident that the skill sets learned through the dental practice management curriculum, coupled with new technology, will help dentists better manage their patients and practices more efficiently, thereby allowing time within their practice to be more productive and extend services to more people."
Marquette's new School of Dentistry, which opened its doors in August 2002 for the start of the current academic year, spans 120,000 square feet and houses a dental clinic. The new facility will enable the School of Dentistry to train approximately 320 dental students a year and provide continuing education to practicing dentists in Wisconsin and surrounding states.