Accepted for/Published in: JMIR Research Protocols
Date Submitted: Apr 7, 2025
Date Accepted: Jan 20, 2026
Protocol to pilot test a diabetes screening and referral to primary care within an Alaska Native dental clinic: a feasibility study
ABSTRACT
Background:
Recognizing the bi-directional relationship between oral health and diabetes mellitus (DM), conducting DM screening and referral to primary care during routine dental hygiene visits has excellent potential for expanding reach and access to diabetes preventive services.
Objective:
This paper describes methods used in an academic-Tribal partnership to co-design, -implement and pilot test a DM screening and referral process within a tribal health care setting.
Methods:
The project uses implementation science frameworks and applies a four-step iterative, participatory planning approach. Project implementation steps include: (1) conducting key informant interviews with dental and primary care staff and administrators and surveying dental care recipients to assess the context for implementation and receptivity towards the proposed innovation; (2) forming and engaging a multi-disciplinary planning team comprised of dental, primary care, informatics, and care improvement personnel, care recipients and researchers; (3) applying survey and interview findings, and internal knowledge of clinic procedures and processes to develop a feasible dental DM screening service model to pilot test with iterative data collection; and (4) refining and disseminating the innovation.
Results:
Key informant interviews and patient surveys completed September 2023. Planning team developed process for pilot based on interview and survey results in combination with lived experience. Pilot set to begin data collection April 2025.
Conclusions:
Offering DM screening during dental appointments aligns dental and primary care services to prevent or delay DM onset. This paradigm shift has potential to facilitate communication between dental and primary care providers, improve the coordination of care across dental and medical services, capitalize on opportunities to reach individuals needing DM screening while they access other services, and expand health system capacity to identify individuals at risk and offer them appropriate DM services.
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Copyright
© The authors. All rights reserved. This is a privileged document currently under peer-review/community review (or an accepted/rejected manuscript). Authors have provided JMIR Publications with an exclusive license to publish this preprint on it's website for review and ahead-of-print citation purposes only. While the final peer-reviewed paper may be licensed under a cc-by license on publication, at this stage authors and publisher expressively prohibit redistribution of this draft paper other than for review purposes.