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BACKGROUND: Nationally, the number of people who use emergency departments for dental needs has been steadily increasing. Currently, there are limited statewide data to describe acute care dental needs in Michigan. Michigan has been collecting chief complaint data from emergency departments to support situational awareness activities related to communicable disease since 2006 with a total population coverage of 81.5% in 2012. We evaluated chief complaint data collected by the Michigan Syndromic Surveillance System (MSSS) for its utility in identifying cases of dental chief complaints that indicate unmet dental needs.This effort describes a novel methodology to estimate the unmet dental needs of Michigan.
METHODS: We examined the Michigan Syndromic Surveillance System (MSSS) data for preventable dental-related chief complaints that occurred in calendar year 2012. Preventive visits included dental pain, gum pain, dental caries and swelling due to dental infection. Dental injuries, fracture of tooth and jaw, TMJ pain, face pain and swelling where dental complaint was comorbidity were excluded. Similarly, any chief complaint based on a previous visit to a dentist was also excluded. These chief complaints were analysed by a trained dentist. We also examined the data from Michigan Behavior Risk Factor Survey (BRFS) in 2012.
RESULTS: Of the 4,331,986 emergency visits recorded in 2012, 19,380 (approximately 0.5%) met the criteria for preventable dental visits. Ages range from 0-101 yrs. with a mean and median of 32.9 and 30 yrs., respectively. A majority of these patients were females (52.2%).Stratified by age, the 20-29 age group made up the largest proportion (39.3%) followed by 30-39 yrs. age group (27.5%). This analysis for unmet dental needs was compared to the Michigan BRFS Oral Health Report and was found to have similar frequency distribution for those who did not access preventive dental care.
CONCLUSIONS: We evaluate the MSSS as an alternative system to examine trends among patients seeking primary dental care from emergency departments, thereby serving as a timely and robust tool to measure unmet dental needs of Michigan. The information can be shared with oral health partners to support efforts to develop and maintain dental care safety nets in Michigan.