Category Page: Oral HP Planning

In developing strategies, one must have an understanding of evidence-based decision making.

“Understanding the evidence for effectiveness of oral health promotion is integral to strategic planning for both oral and general health settings.”

Satur, 2010

Best Practices in strategic planning are those that follow all of the principles and format of the strategic planning process.

The following resources on the Canadian Best Practices Portal can help in the planning of strategies and interventions for oral health promotion:

• The Canadian Best Practices Portal’s organizing framework of the Population Health Approach establishes steps or elements that should be followed in ensuring that a practice or intervention takes a population health approach, and provides examples of how the practitioner can apply each element.
• The National Collaborating Centre for Methods and Tools’ (NCCMT) Evidence-Informed Public Health framework outlines the process of distilling and disseminating the best available evidence, whether from research or from actual practice, and using that evidence to inform and improve public health practice and policy.
• The Health Communication Unit, and the NCCMT have developed an Online Health Program Planner which provides users with interactive planning supports that can be adapted for their needs.

Resources

• Canadian Oral Health Strategy
• B.C. Evidence Review: Dental Public Health

Best Practices in Strategic Planning for Oral Health

Best Practices in oral health strategic planning are those that follow all of the principles and format of the strategic planning process including:

1. Define, or adhere to, the Mission and Vision of the organization.
2. Identify the problems. Through needs assessment and the use of survey data, identify all of the problems that need to be addressed, prioritized according to their importance. The problems can be stated in terms of organization or of oral health status.
3. Identify and examine the current measures, priorities and resources. Evaluate the impact or effectiveness of the current measures, and determine if the resources at hand are being used effectively and efficiently. Over time, and with changing circumstances, interventions and programs that were put in place for a specific purpose may no longer be meeting the needs for which they were intended.
4. Establish goals to be achieved. The goals should be SMART goals:
   1. Specific – define the goals to be specific to what is to be achieved. They can define improvements in oral health outcomes, improvements in access to care, or they can be process goals, establishing processes or interventions.
   2. Measurable – goals should be defined in measurable terms, and indicators should be established that indicate the level of achievement of the goals.
   3. Achievable – the goals should stretch the organization, but they should not be impossible to achieve.
   4. Relevant – the goals should address the actual problems.
   5. Time-related – there should be an end date that the goals should be achieved by. The time period should be long enough so that results can be seen, but short enough so that individuals can take ownership of the program and work toward the goals. Usually 5-8 years is appropriate for oral health planning.

   In establishing goals, one must be cognisant of changing trends and demographics. For example in a period of decreasing decay rates, effects of a strategy will piggyback on the natural changes, while in a time of increasing decay rates the aim of the strategy might be to reduce or stop the natural increase.

5. Identify strategies for each of the goals that will be worked on to achieve them and define indicators for monitoring success. The strategies can be either process strategies (such as creation of the position of a provincial Dental Director), or oral health strategies to improve access to care and the level of oral health (for example increase the number of schools included in a school-based prevention program).
6. Monitoring and evaluation – a method of monitoring the outcomes should be incorporated into the strategic plan. Baseline measurements for each of the indicators at the starting point are necessary.

Two important elements of the strategic plan are:

1. Duration – The strategic plan needs to be long enough in order to be able to measure the results and see improvements that are attributable to the strategies, yet short enough that those involved can take ownership of the plan and see results. A good, standard duration for oral health strategic plans is five years.
2. Leadership – In order to be successful, a plan needs strong leadership – someone who will be in charge of directing the strategies and monitoring the results.

Best Practices that incorporate these components of strategic planning are included in this section.

References

1. Satur JG, Gussy MG, Morgan MV, Calache H and Wright C. Review of the evidence for oral health promotion effectiveness. Health Education Journal 2010 69: 257
2. The National Collaborating Centre for Methods and Tools (NCCMT) Evidence-Informed Public Health framework
3. The Health Communication Unit of University of Toronto, and the NCCMT Online Health Program Planner