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State Fair Community College RDH Program: Expanding & Innovating


by ANDRA FERGUSON, PhD S


tate Fair Community College (SFCC) has been working to ex- pand its dental hygiene program. Recently, SFCC applied for two grants: one was not received, while the other (through the MOExcels program) we anticipate hearing about in


September. Plans for the grant funding are to assist with the renova- tion of a current building on the SFCC campus into a multi-purpose health science building which would include an expanded dental hygiene facility. This grant funding would allow the college to estab- lish an advanced dental training facility that will provide a centralized training center supporting SFCC’s service region.


Though the college’s main campus is in Sedalia, the college’s 14-coun- ty region in mid-Missouri is an area roughly the size of the state of Vermont. This region of west-central Missouri is an aging, medically underserved region. According to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Health Resources and Services Administration, nine of the 14 counties have Medically Underserved Area designations ei- ther as a full county or a subdivision, and all 14 counties have Health Professional Shortage Area designations.


With the multi-purpose health center, the dental hygiene clinic will allow for more than double the enrollment of students and number of community patients able to be served in the on-campus clinic, thereby increasing dental services provided to the underserved popu- lation of the SFCC service area. It’s obvious this expansion would be a great benefit to the entire community.


SFCC’s proposal is aimed at providing students access to high-quality health science education opportunities and boosting enrollment in programs with significant labor market demand. The health science occupations are listed as high-demand occupations, identified using long-term occupational projections developed by the Missouri Eco- nomic Research and Information Center (MERIC). MERIC’s projec- tions assign career grades based on projected openings, growth and wages.


The Missouri Department of Health and Human Service’s Health Workforce Strategic Plan focuses on recruiting and training health professionals from underserved communities to build a diverse representative health workforce, ensuring equitable distribution of the workforce across geographic areas and health professions, and using evidence and data to make better decisions about our health workforce education and training investments. With that in mind, 67 percent of SFCC’s Dental Hygiene students and 83 percent of the Occupational Therapy Assistants students come from rural counties, which are nearly all considered Health Professional Shortage Areas.


28 focus | FALL 2023 | ISSUE 3


Additionally, following graduation from SFCC, for the past three years, 93 percent of SFCC dental hygiene graduates work in Missouri with 65 percent of those working in rural Missouri counties. We believe this investment of funds for a health education center serving rural Missouri makes good sense.


In addition to the above exciting opportunities for the SFCC health- care education programs, we also are working with community partners to adapt current dental hygiene curriculum to support online didactic learning and face-to-face clinical and lab courses. This is a new, hybrid option to deliver education, which will allow SFCC to take on more students to meet the workforce needs. This is something we have considered to meet demands of Missourians and the workforce demand. Currently, clinical and lab portions of training are taught by adjunct bachelor-level hygienists, within the require- ments of the Commission on Dental Accreditation (CODA). We also have current clinical rotations in dental offices during the second year of the DH program. SFCC would like to expand the clinical training to include first-year students. However, this change to the program must first be CODA approved.


Communication and support from MDA, Missouri Dental Hygienists’ Association, Office of Dental Health and many community health partners has been encouraging and will hopefully continue to bring the best health outcomes to Missourians. We are very grateful for the support of the physical expansion on campus and of new educational methods to address workforce issues.


Dr. Andra Ferguson is the Director of Dental Hygiene at State Fair Community College. Headquartered in Sedalia, SFCC serves a 14-county region in west central Missouri, including the following counties: Benton, Camden, Carroll, Cole, Cooper, Henry, Hickory, Johnson, Miller, Moniteau, Morgan, Pettis, Saline and St. Clair.


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