Delta Dental of Illinois Funds New UIC Pediatric Dentistry Clinic

By William S. Bike 

Delta Dental of Illinois has contributed $250,000 to the University of Illinois at Chicago College of Dentistry’s Department of Pediatric Dentistry to create the Delta Dental of Illinois Predoctoral Pediatric Dentistry Clinic at the college’s 801 S. Paulina St. location.

            Delta Illinois is one of 39 independently operated member companies of the Delta Dental Plans Association, the largest dental benefits carrier in the country. Delta Illinois offers an array of dental plans for Illinois-based employers and covers employees throughout the United States.

            The donation, raised as part of the university’s Brilliant Futures fundraising campaign, will go toward the Department of Pediatric Dentistry’s $1.5 million Brilliant Futures fundraising goal. The college will use it to create a predoctoral pediatric dentistry clinic. “We feel this gift will provide faculty, students, and patients with a state-of-the-art facility in which to deliver high quality dental care and oral health education,” said Robert Dennison, DMD, CEO of Delta Illinois. 

            “The current facilities were designed for the early 1970s,” said Dr. Indru Punwani, head of the Department of Pediatric Dentistry. “Now we are seeing disease patterns in increasingly younger patients, so care of two- and three-year-olds requires privacy and soundproofing the old clinic doesn’t have. One child crying can result in an orchestra of crying very shortly.”

            In addition, the clinic’s new design will comply with Federal Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act requirements and offer facilities for special needs populations. It also will provide room for parents or other caregivers to accompany children to treatment when appropriate.

            “In the old days, parents did not participate in oral healthcare procedures, but societal expectations have changed,” Punwani said. “Another change in the predoctoral curriculum is that students now do infant oral health assessments as a part of health promotion and disease prevention, so we need to have space for that as well.”

            The 2,500 square foot, 14-chair clinic will feature the latest equipment such as digital radiographs; new sedation areas and operatories with new dental chairs and cabinetry and piped-in nitrous oxide; upgraded radiological equipment; and educational tools “that can also serve as distraction devices for children, such as televisions in every dental unit,” Punwani said.

Dennison noted that “An essential part of Delta Dental of Illinois’s mission is the improvement of the oral health of the communities it serves. For 40 years, the company has been helping to improve access to oral health education for the people of Illinois. Delta Illinois draws upon its dental expertise as a dental service plan corporation to partner with a range of groups such as community-based clinics, elementary schools, health care professionals, and dental schools.

“We considered a grant to the University of Illinois at Chicago College of Dentistry for the Pediatric Dentistry Clinic as fitting perfectly with our mission,” he continued, noting that through the new clinic college personnel “will help establish good oral heath that could last a lifetime for the children treated at the clinic and make oral health more accessible for underserved individuals.”

Dennison expressed Delta Illinois’s appreciation for the recognition UIC College of Dentistry Dean Bruce Graham and the University of Illinois Board of Trustees have extended to his organization “by naming the clinic after Delta Illinois because it serves to reinforce our partnership with the dental community and highlight the work Delta Dental of Illinois is doing to improve the oral health of the communities it serves.”

Construction of the new clinic is expected to start and conclude this summer.