Interdisciplinary care (also known as team-based care) is when a variety of healthcare professionals from two or more disciplines come together to improve a patient’s health with a care plan.

Read more about the Ten Principles of Good Interdisciplinary Teamwork to learn what creates an effective care team. The Case for Understanding Interdisciplinary Relationships in Health Care resource explains the most common types of health care collaborations and how they improve patient care.

Oral health literacy is the degree to which a person can get, evaluate, understand, and use oral health information and services to make good health decisions. By improving health literacy, patients are better stewards of their own health.

Health literacy makes dental and health care systems easier to self-navigate. Improve your patients' OHL by speaking to them in plain language and checking their understanding by using the teach-back method.

Listed below are a handful of resources that medical providers and healthcare professionals can use to improve the oral health literacy of their patients.

• Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) Oral Health Division - Oral health,  dental sealants,  oral health data and oral health literacy online courses.

• Center for Plain Language - Workshops and webinars and the Five Steps to Plain Language.

• CareQuest Institute for Oral Health - Oral-Systemic Connection Across the Lifespan infographic.

Listed below are a handful of resources that medical providers and healthcare professionals can use to improve their own oral health literacy.

• Oral Health Care During Pregnancy: A National Consensus Statement - Developed in collaboration with the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists and the American Dental Association.

• Oral Health Care During Pregnancy: Guidance for Texas Prenatal and Dental Providers - Written for medical and dental providers, offers insight on oral health care for pregnant women.

• Rocky Mountain Network of Oral Health (RoMoNOH) -Free eLearning courses for medical providers about interdisciplinary collaboration and MDI.

• Smiles for Life - Free, nationally recognized online oral health courses for medical providers and others.

• Prevention and management: Integrating Oral Health Care and Primary Care Learning Collaborative describes how nine clinics integrated oral health into prenatal care.

• Oral Health Resource Hub: The National Maternal and Child Oral Health Resource Center  provides oral health information and resources for patients and providers.

• Implementing MDI: The Integrating Oral Health Care into Primary Care: A Resource Guide (2nd ed.) provides information on where to start integrating medical and oral health practices.

• Oral health education and tools: The CareQuest Institute for Oral Health provides continuing education courses, resources and tools, and information on access to care, medical-dental integration, and more.

• Other clinics' approaches: The Pilot Study of Integration of Medical and Dental Care and Delivery of Oral Health Services at Medical Visits through 3 Medical Dental Integration Models describes the barriers and impact medical-dental integration has on the health field.