After completing her dental hygiene degree at UBC, Dr. Leeann Donnelly returned to work with the Geriatric Dentistry Program. She enjoyed this experience so much that she started graduate studies looking at seniors in long-term care and quickly fell in love with research.  

Today, Dr. Donnelly’s work is focused on integrated care and understanding how oral health doesn’t operate in a silo. She is leading the UBC arm of the EFry Health Centre, an exciting project over a decade in the making that is a direct product of her research.   

The Centre is built on an integrated care model and serves more than 200 patients—primarily vulnerable women, children and families—through holistic, trauma-informed and culturally safe healthcare.  

A dental clinic on the first floor is serviced by UBC dental and dental hygiene students who rotate through, receiving educational instruction from UBC Dentistry faculty while providing restorative, preventative and emergency oral health services to patients. The clinic was made possible thanks to generous support from donors, including Sinclair Dental, who provided gifts-in-kind and GreenShield, who donated over $300,000 in funding.  

“At EFry, we work mostly with vulnerable people, but this model of having community health centres focused on integrated care can work for all populations; it just requires reimagining how we work together,” says Dr. Donnelly. “Integrated care is person-centred, so we’re not just focused on dentistry. Instead, it’s about practitioners working together to address individual needs.”  

Along with the dental clinic, the Centre is home to numerous healthcare providers, including physicians, nurses, dieticians and social workers, who provide patients with one-stop access to care. Research shows that an integrated approach leads to better health outcomes and benefits practitioners, who can easily collaborate with other experts to help patients receive the best possible care.  

“The other piece of this research is making sure our students have a good understanding of how to work with different populations after graduation,” says Dr. Donnelly. “Whether they’re in private practice or at a community healthcare centre, I hope they take what they learn at UBC Dentistry and apply it to their work so they can help make oral healthcare accessible and holistic for everyone.” 

For more information about our new clinic and teaching and learning opportunities, please contact Dr. Leeann Donnelly, Director of Community Engagement, at ldonnelly@dentistry.ubc.ca.