PDS Health Founder and CEO Stephen E. Thorne IV is a passionate advocate for the integration of dental and medical care as a means to improve overall health and well-being. By prioritizing oral health, Steve emphasizes, clinicians can serve as the first line of defense, potentially catching more serious conditions before they require medical intervention.
As a guest on the “Think Oral Health” podcast, Steve discussed his first exposure to the oral-systemic link, and how it led to his advocacy for the Mouth-Body Connection®.
“My mom died of a heart attack when she was 65 years old, she had no reason to die that young. She had been to a cardiologist a few weeks before and he told her she would live to 100 years old,” he said. “The experience really got me thinking that there was a reason why she died at such an early age.”
Steve's research into the connection between oral health and overall health led him to see that the siloed nature of care posed a serious threat to patient health, and if he could help coordinate care between dental and medical providers, it could make a substantial difference for patients. He did some market research and found that there was great interest.
“Consumers love the concept of dental-medical integration and being able to go to one location to get the most of their primary care,” he said.
PDS Health launched its first integrated dental-medical practice in 2016. Early on, it became clear that coordinating patient care would be a challenge because dental and medical providers were working within separate electronic health record (EHR) systems. To close that gap, the team identified a long-term solution: a single, shared EHR platform.
While Epic was already widely used in medical settings around the world, it had not been meaningfully implemented in dentistry. PDS Health partnered with Epic to adapt and enhance its dental module, becoming the first dental support organization to implement the platform at a national scale. Today, integrated access to patient health records enables providers to collaborate more effectively, support earlier diagnoses and deliver more connected, comprehensive care.
“Epic is the backbone of the entire company because everything we do runs through that system to help clinicians understand more about their patients, more about their health history, the medication they’re on, and any other problems,” said Steve. “Education leads to awareness which leads to activation, and that goes for clinicians, too.”
Not only did PDS Health see instant growth thanks to this integration of records, but it led to better clinical care. Steve references a saying used often across our teams: “Patients don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care.” We believe that when patients know their provider cares about them and their overall health, they are more likely to engage in preventive care like fixing a tooth or getting an implant replaced.
The integration of health records allows clinicians to identify early symptoms associated with chronic conditions like diabetes, pre-term birth, stroke and more.
“I want to get dentists to think about themselves differently, as physicians of the mouth,” he said. “We have an opportunity to do so much more as we engage in the oral systemic link and the Mouth-Body Connection.”
Listen to the full podcast here: The Journey Toward Comprehensive Dental and Medical Integration with Stephen Thorne.
