Date of Award

2025

Document Type

Project

College/School

College of Nursing

Degree Name

Doctor of Nursing Practice (DNP)

Project Mentor

Robin Narruhn

Readers

Nina Zhang

Comments

This quality improvement initiative aimed to improve the integration of oral health into diabetes management within a primary care setting by improving provider knowledge, confidence, and use of available resources. Conducted at a Federally Qualified Health Center (FQHC), the project followed a three-section, mixed-methods design. Section One assessed provider learning preferences, resource use, and referral facilitators. Eight providers completed the pre-survey and five completed the post-survey. Results demonstrated a shift toward realtime group discussion and immediate feedback as preferred learning formats. Mean Likert scores for oral health tool utilization increased from 2.0 to 3.2 post-intervention. Providers also expressed a post-intervention preference for point-of-care tools such as EHR prompts and patient education handouts. In Section Two, provider knowledge, confidence, and preparedness all improved following the educational session, with the greatest gains seen in understanding oral-systemic links and confidence in offering anticipatory guidance. Section Three examined structural barriers to integration. While some training-related barriers decreased, persistent structural challenges remained, including time constraints, competing priorities, and limited dental coverage for patients. Despite these systemic obstacles, the intervention led to short-term improvements in provider engagement and behavior. Findings support the use of brief, discussion-based education to initiate practice change, though longterm integration will require ongoing training, resource access, and institutional support.

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