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Keeping It In-House: A Look at AGD Constituents with CE Centers
By Michal Christine Escobar
Within the United States, two AGD constituents offer brick-and-mortar continuing education (CE) centers: Washington and Oregon. Both CE centers offer significant educational benefits to the dental community, such as autonomy over curriculum development, enabling a broad spectrum of outreach programs, facilitating hands-on experiences and more. However, they also present challenges, such as substantial financial investments, operational complexities and the need for strong leaders. Thus, before a constituent decides to open its own CE center, careful assessment and strategic planning are essential to determining its viability.
The CE Center Advantage
Like most AGD constituents, both Washington and Oregon partnered for years with dental schools, hotels and members’ dental offices to deliver educational courses. As time passed, however, both constituents felt — for a variety of reasons — that their members would benefit from a permanent educational center.
“Washington AGD chose to create its Global Educational Center in 2015 to meet the growing demand for quality CE programs tailored to our specific needs of dental professions,” said Washington AGD Executive Director Valerie Bartoli, CDA. “We were the first AGD constituent to have its own educational center. By having our own CE center, we can offer a wider range of outreach programs, hands-on participation and live-patient courses; control the curriculum; and ensure high standards of instruction and learning outcomes.”
The prospect of offering more hands-on participation and live-patient courses also convinced the Oregon AGD to create its own CE center, the OAGD Foundation Center.
“We have been a constituent that has delivered hands-on live-patient education since 1969,” said AGD Secretary Kimberly R. Wright, DMD, MAGD. Wright is from Oregon and was heavily involved in raising money for the Oregon AGD CE center. “Treating patients with your mentor and peers looking over your shoulder is incredibly empowering and educational. But providing this type of education requires a very specific venue. In 2018, leadership decided that having a permanent home to house dental education and charitable initiatives in Oregon was necessary.”
Additionally, the OAGD Foundation Center has created many efficiencies.
“Having one facility to work from has been a great asset,” Wright said. “The office for our staff is there, our education happens there, and we have all our meetings there. The efficiency of it all is perfect.”
Washington AGD experienced these same benefits, but also found that having its own CE center made financial sense. According to Washington AGD President Carl W. Youngquist, DDS, MAGD, the Washington constituent was spending more than $175,000 per year renting space from hotels to hold its AGD MasterTrack® program. This program spanned 16 days a year (four four-day weekends).
“We figured, for $175,000, we could get our own place for MasterTrack courses, plus we could use the building for other Washington AGD courses, meetings and events,” he said.
Both Oregon AGD and Washington AGD allow other dental-related groups to hold programs and host events at their centers, which, in many cases, generates additional revenue.
Because it has its own facility, Oregon AGD has had the opportunity to partner with a local school district to provide career exploration in dental assisting as part of its Health Careers Program. And for individuals who are no longer in high school, the Oregon CE center offers condensed and accelerated pathways into dental assisting.
“We have been excited to help with workforce issues in our community. Every one of our members feels these issues, so this adds value to their membership,” Wright added.
The Reality of CE Center Management
While having one’s own CE center certainly comes with many benefits, there are plenty of challenges as well. To begin with, it requires a large financial investment upfront to build or rent and outfit. Wright was part of a group of volunteers that helped raise $1 million in donations and another $1 million worth of donated equipment in 2018 for the Oregon CE center.
And, of course, once a CE center is open, there are significant costs for operating and maintaining the center.
“Oregon’s CE center has a $1.3 million operating budget, and the cost of running a facility like ours is more than we anticipated,” Wright said. “Running a large operation is challenging and not for the faint of heart. You need a solid staff to even consider this type of program.”
The expansion of dental support organizations and corporate dentistry has changed how dentists are employed. A growing number are employees rather than solo practitioners. As a result, many dentists no longer have the authority to “dictate the purchase of equipment required for course participation. Additionally, tuition is not always tax-deductible for an employee dentist,” explained Wright.
To combat this, Oregon’s CE center found it needed to diversify its revenue base and find new ways to attract employee dentists in a manner that works financially for them. For example, it partnered with a large group practice to provide CE opportunities to its providers, and it is working to establish relationships with large multilocation practices to collaborate in the CE arena for their employees.
Will a CE Center Align with Your Constituent?
Every AGD constituent is different. Before leaping into the creation of a CE center, Wright recommends that each constituent ask themselves: Do I have the audience that will support it?
“If your organization mostly lectures, this might not be the model for you,” she said. “You need a membership that wants to do live-patient education. That needs to be in your culture, through and through. It’s too expensive of a venture to build and just hope they will come.”
Additionally, each organization must ensure they have a solid leader on staff before considering such a project.
“Someone needs to be there daily to make it all work seamlessly,” Wright added.
Youngquist couldn’t agree more.
“It’s critical that the organization has dedicated and talented leaders who are able to take their vision and make it happen by working with others and by using all the resources available,” he noted. “To operate and maintain a learning center, organizations — such as AGD constituents — cannot rely on volunteer members alone. They will need to hire competent employees to ensure its success.”
Consider this: Depending on the size and scope of services offered, operating a CE center has many similarities to running an event center, says Lauren Malone, CMP, executive director of the Oregon AGD.
“In addition to acting as the program provider, you are also functioning as the venue and in charge of everything that entails,” she said. “Room setup and teardown, audiovisual support, catering arrangements, staffing arrangements, managing rental groups, and ongoing building/equipment maintenance become part of standard day-to-day operations. It is critical to have adequate and properly trained staff to handle these operational requirements.”
The Role of CE Centers in AGD’s Mission
AGD’s mission is to advance general dentistry and oral health through quality continuing education and advocacy.
“Our CE center plays a crucial role in fulfilling AGD’s mission by providing high-quality educational opportunities that support the professional development and lifelong learning of our members, ultimately enhancing the quality of dental care provided to patients,” said Bartoli.
The Washington AGD Global Educational Center not only supports local dentists, but it also provides education to out-of-state and even international dentists via a special arrangement with the state of Washington. This special arrangement with the Department of Health and the Dental Quality Commission allows dentists who are not licensed in the state of Washington to practice on patients during a Washington CE center course without needing to get a temporary license, said AGD Editor Timothy F. Kosinski, DDS, MAGD, who frequently presents courses at the Global Education Center.
“This is truly an exceptional arrangement, because I feel the best way for a dentist to learn is to practice on a live human being,” said Kosinski. “Being able to work on live patients is really something special.”
Additionally, many dentists who are taking CE classes are working toward specific credentials that require a number of “hands-on” practice hours, notes Kosinski. It can be challenging for dentists to acquire those practice hours — although there are certainly ways it can be done. But with the CE centers in Oregon and Washington, dentists can more easily identify high-quality hands-on courses catered specifically toward general dentists, making the centers valuable resources to the dental community.
Michal Christine Escobar is a freelance writer based in Chicago. To comment on this article, email impact@agd.org.
