Teledentistry Innovation Awards 2020

Jingjing Qian RDH, EA is awarded a 2020 Tellies in the Dental Hygiene category for being instrumental in developing and implementing a COVID reponse Guided Oral Hygiene program that continued oral care to long-term care residents who would otherwise not had these critical services. When the pandemic hit, Jingjing and her fellow team members could no longer go in person to provide dental hygiene care to residents of the long-term care facility. Jingjing innovated. Working with her dentist, Dr. Brooke Fukuoka, she partnered with the on-site caregivers to ensure these patients would still receive regular oral hygiene services. Ms. Qian developed the Guided Oral Hygiene program through which caregivers were trained on how to gather information via teledentistry and then used live teledentistry interactions to help caregivers with patient-specific oral hygiene regimes. During the COVID-19 pandemic, this teledentistry-enabled touchpoint was the only dental services many of these patients received for months. Her 2020 Tellies award reflects how individuals can respond to challenging times to still meet patient needs and create new care models that have long-term benefits.