BANGOR, Maine – On April 1, the Lunder-Dineen Health Education Alliance of Maine will present a breakout session on the organization’s MOTIVATE oral health education initiative at the Maine Quality Counts QC2015 conference at the Augusta Civic Center. Maine’s largest health care conference, QC2015’s theme is “Delivering Health Care or Health,” and features renowned keynote speakers Dr. Atul Gawande and Anne F. Weiss, MPP; 22 breakout sessions; and many networking opportunities for Maine health care professionals.

MOTIVATE – which stands for Maine’s Oral Team-Based Initiative: Vital Access to Education – is an innovative and Maine-tailored education program developed by Lunder-Dineen and a statewide advisory team of Maine-based experts in response to national calls-to-action from the U.S. Surgeon General, American Dental Association, Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, and others to raise awareness about the connection between good oral health and good overall health. The project’s mission is to use the latest research findings to improve, promote and protect the oral and overall health of long-term care residents in Maine using evidence-based programs in a collaborative education and practice model.

The MOTIVATE session at QC2015 provides an in-depth look at the framework behind the project, and allows attendees to consider both the value of establishing collaborative partnerships and the potential for adapting the MOTIVATE model to a wide range of community-based health initiatives. Speakers include Lunder-Dineen professional development specialist Carole MacKenzie, RN, BSN, MEd, and Maine-based MOTIVATE advisory team members Leonard Brennan, DMD, Co-Director of Harvard’s Dental Geriatric Fellowship Program and practicing dentist in Portland; Marilyn Gugliucci, PhD, Director of Geriatric Education and Research at the University of New England; Demi Kouzounas, DMD, immediate past president of the Maine Dental Association and practicing dentist in Scarborough.

“MOTIVATE presents a tremendous opportunity to not only improve the health of older adults in Maine, but to model other collaborative partnerships in our state,” says Leonard Brennan, DMD, who has practiced dentistry in Portland for 30 years and is a member of Lunder-Dineen’s advisory team for MOTIVATE. “MOTIVATE has galvanized stakeholders on all sides of oral health and older adult health, and we’re developing an educational model that meets the needs of Maine residents, health care professionals, educators, and administrators alike.”

To learn more about the QC2015 conference, visit mainequalitycounts.org.

For more information about MOTIVATE, visit lunderdineen.org/oral-health.