Here are 12 updates covered by Becker's that show how the dental industry is dealing with workforce shortages:
1. Texas City, Texas-based College of the Mainland will launch a dental hygiene associate degree program to help fill the workforce gaps and demand for dental hygienists, especially in the Gulf Coast region.
2. The American Dental Association expressed its support for the A Stronger Workforce for America Act, which aims to boost workforce development and training programs for dental hygienists and dental assistants.
3. The dentist and dental hygienist interstate compact was activated after Maine joined as the seventh state.
4. Suncoast Career Academy opened a training facility in Brandon, Fla., to help alleviate the state's dental assistant shortage.
5. Dental assistants and hygienists remain the most challenging roles to recruit for dental practices, according to a new report from the American Dental Association's Health Policy Institute.
6. The University of Pittsburgh School of Dental Medicine is planning to expand its apprenticeship program for dental assistants to include more than 60 student trainees. The program, which was launched in January 2023 and just had its first six graduates, aims to alleviate staffing shortages and increase diversity in dentistry.
7. Northeast Wisconsin Technical College in Green Bay is creating a new program to train expanded function dental auxiliaries.
8. N.E.W. Community Clinic, a dental practice in Green Bay, Wis., is adding dental therapists to its staff to help alleviate its scheduling challenges.
9. The Aspen Group partnered with Women Employed and Midwestern Career College to launch an initiative to help low-income women join the dental workforce.
10. Lawmakers in Minnesota introduced legislation to create a $20 million grant appropriation designated for dental hygiene and dental assisting programs.
11. The nationwide lack of dental hygienists is forcing patients in Virginia to have to wait as long as 14 months for a routine cleaning.
12. Rhode Island dentists are predicting a staffing "superstorm" in the state driven by several factors.