March 2019 Explorer

President’s Message

ADHA Institute for Oral Health Report

Howard M Notgarnie RDH EdD

I am excited to be starting my second year as ADHA Institute for Oral Health liaison. Colorado had a decent showing for donations, but we did not hit our goal last year. At a District X meeting of ADHA—IOH liaisons last month along with our District Trustee, Crystal Spring, RDH, we came up with some great ideas for fundraising. Several of our colleagues have held activities, like running and hiking, as fundraising activities. They have had state events to raise funds for the In Motion 5K run at the ADHA Annual Conference, and they have had raffles and similar games of chance. You may be wondering what the fundraising goes toward. The ADHA Institute for Oral Health is the charitable foundation of the American Dental Hygienists’ Association. We raise money to donate toward scholarships, research grants, and community service projects. In fact, if you are a student, researcher, or serve the community, you can apply for one of those grants by following the link and choosing the title on the left side of the page.

We are off to a great start this year. Since July 1, 2018, the beginning of the Institute’s fiscal year, Colorado has raised $1195.00 of our goal, $1766.00. Our fundraising theme during the Fall Giving Campaign was a focus on the future of our profession through research.

Our next big campaign is the In Motion 5K. As always, the In Motion 5K will be during our Annual Conference. This year the Conference is in Louisville, KY. Continuing Education at that event will be June 21 – 23, 2019. The 5K and the After-Burn party will be on the 21^st. Registration for the ADHA Annual Conference begins January 16. Early registration comes with a discount, so don’t delay.

Educational Services Report

Howard M Notgarnie RDH EdD

I am glad to see CODHA membership has been rising the past few years. We have been increasing opportunities for continuing education to our members, and continuing education has been one of the biggest draws for professionals to join their associations. Providing CE takes a lot of effort from many volunteers to organize a venue, catering, and funding. We are continuously seeking presenters, sponsors, and in many cases vendors to serve our members in CE events. The Council on Educational Services has a half dozen members who review proposed courses to ensure you get a professional quality update on the state of your art. As the first elected Chair of Council on Educational Services, I shout out a big thanks to Kathy Forbes for handing out a well-prepared, well-organized system for me to take over. We are using a professional registration system, CE Zoom, to ensure you receive your courses and maintain documentation. Be sure to sign up as a professional, so you will be ready to register for CODHA CE and many other venues.

During the first biennium in which we were required to maintain continuing education to renew our licenses, CODHA had three metropolitan areas of high CE activity: Pueblo, Denver, and Grand Junction. This time, I hope these locations continue while our other components increase their activity. Pueblo is working on hosting a Spring Session, and Boulder plans smaller CE meetings on a monthly basis. Our executive administrator, Alyssa Aberle, has been presenting CE in a webinar format. I look forward to additional innovations from every Component. The Council and CODHA leadership are in our positions to help by ensuring funding is available, providing resources, ensuring contracts are fair and complete, and directly participating in organizational activities.

The members of our profession not only seek to maintain knowledge of current science. We are also philanthropic. We got into this profession because we care about our neighbors and communities. We want the members of our society to be healthy and to have access to care. With that in mind, CODHA Board of Trustees has instituted a policy to include donation lines in the CE registration. Last year’s annual session encouraged donations to support dental hygiene students’ registration fees. This year, every CE registration will include optional donations to ADHA Institute for Oral Health and CODHA Assessments. The ADHA Institute for Oral Health funds scholarships, research grants, and community service grants. CODHA Assessments funds advocacy efforts that help us maintain and improve our consumers’ access to care. When you promote growth in yourself as a professional through continuing education, you also fund growth in the profession.

ADHA Delegation Report

Howard M Notgarnie RDH EdD

Representing Colorado Dental Hygienists’ Association as Chair of the Delegation for a second year is an honor. Not only are you, as members, putting your trust in us delegates to represent you in American Dental Hygienists’ Association’s decisions at the national level; you are giving us the opportunity to demonstrate to the rest of the country what we can accomplish as autonomous professionals. We frequently hear comments from our colleagues in states with restrictive legislation how “lucky” we are. However, it’s not luck. Many of our members put a lot of time and effort into dental hygiene’s professional project. We have members who participate in numerous interprofessional task forces to advocate for improvements to legislation and access to care, most frequently with the Colorado Dental Association and often with members of Colorado government agencies. In more than two decades I have been practicing, our technology has grown immensely: we are no longer relying primarily on the research of dentists and physicians; we have top quality research published in ADHA’s Journal of Dental Hygiene and the International Journal of Dental Hygiene, the publication of the International Federation of Dental Hygiene.

Part of any profession’s work is maintaining the business of that profession. Most of us don’t care for that part of our professional activity. “It’s too political!” is the reaction I hear most often. That’s OK; in any year, less than 1% of our profession needs to represent us in our business meetings or in advocacy with legislators and other stakeholders. As at our Constituent’s Annual Session, the ADHA Annual Conference includes a business meeting, a House of Delegates. At CODHA Annual Session, your Component delegates elected four delegates to ADHA House of Delegates and three alternate delegates. These delegates are me, as Chair of the delegation, Julia Martin RDH, Teresa Ramirez RDH, Lisa Westhoff RDH, Heather Schenkel RDH, Becky Comstedt, RDH, and Amy Rezvani RDH, all of whom are also members of CODHA Board of Trustees. We will be representing you June 23 – 25 at the business meeting, after the Continuing Education has ended. Many of the decisions for which we delegates will be voting are the vision of how ADHA serves and advocates for its members and for the profession. What do you expect of your professional association? What should you be getting from ADHA? What policies should ADHA be promoting? If you have an idea, please tell me. The first step is knowing what our members want. The CODHA Board of Trustees can turn our members’ expectations into a proposed resolution that we will submit for consideration at the ADHA Annual Conference. Last year, one of the policies adopted by ADHA House of Delegates originated in Colorado: “The American Dental Hygienists’ Association supports interprofessional advocacy of public and social policies that promote health.” Look for further information from ADHA on the website and your Trustees in your email. The votes we take as delegates depend on your comments.

Practice Act Video Refresher

“Treasurer’s” Trove

Yay!  It’s March!  Not just St. Paddy’s Day, but it also signals the end of Business Tax Season!!  With all of the W-9’s, 1099’s, 990-EZ behind us for another year, we can move full steam ahead on CODHA’s fiscal ventures for 2019.  Along with Mike Myers, not the actor, but CODHA’s trusty CPA, we are looking ahead to awesome financial opportunities.

Thanks to the support of members, potential members, participation at live CE events throughout the state, and webinars, CODHA will continue on the pathway to “bring it” for all!  We didn’t get the moniker “Trail Blazers” for nothing!  We couldn’t do it without all of you!!

As your current Treasurer, I look back at how CODHA (and I) did business back in 2009 and it never ceases to amaze me as to where our profession is continuing to take us.  Whether it’s “tech by numbers” or “tech by webinars”, we are moving along in crazy fashion.  Over the past few years, a lot of changes on how individual States “do business” have come down from ADHA.  We are still working out the logistics of how this looks and makes the most sense.

Please reach out to me if you’ve got any questions, concerns, or suggestions!  I’m all ears!!

Thanks for the opportunity to serve as your Treasurer, once again…

Beth Olson, RDH

treasurer@codha.org

Capitol Day

Pictured: Julia Martin,  Alyssa Aberle, Valerie Cuzella, Rachel Lynn and Chairel Thomas. Also attended: Howard Notgarnie, Deb Astroth.

On February 27th a group of CODHA members got to meet with local congressional representatives Duran, and Singer, and senator Ginal to discuss upcoming goals for the legislative session. Many also had the opportunity to sit in on a committee discussing the public health issue of adding e-cigarettes to the Clean Indoor Air Act.  Click on the following link for a recent article about this issue: https://news.usc.edu/154348/e-cigs-may-not-be-as-benign-as-many-believe/

https://www.codha.org/eventsce