Quality Improvement Fund - Sheridan Health Services (SHS) is the only academic, nurse-managed Federally Qualified Health Center (FQHC) in Colorado, serving more than 5,000 patients annually in southwest Denver through a fully integrated model of primary care, behavioral health, dental services, pharmacy, and substance use treatment. SHS operates directly alongside the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus (CU Anschutz) and received the 2025 HRSA Community Health Quality Recognition Award for Improving Access to Care. SHS currently serves approximately 255 patients with neurodevelopmental disorder (NDD) diagnoses. Of these, only 11% have had a dental visit at SHS in the past 12 months, reflecting not an absence of need but an absence of the neurodiversity-affirming clinical infrastructure, trained workforce, and patient support capacity required to serve this population appropriately within the health center. Children with NDDs in SHS's service area face a dental care landscape that is clinically and environmentally unprepared for their needs, and the service area carries a dental Health Professional Shortage Area score of 23 out of 26, near the highest level of shortage on the HRSA scale. With QIF-DNDD funding, SHS will implement a three-goal project to establish a functioning NDD-adapted dental home within its existing clinical setting. Goal 1 will increase the proportion of NDD children under 21 with a dental visit in the past 12 months from 11% to 40% through the conversion of one dental operatory into a fully Sensory-Adapted Dental Environment (SADE), the procurement of NDD-specific clinical equipment including nitrous oxide delivery, and the establishment of a structured referral pipeline through Sheridan School District 2, Family Voices Colorado, and other community partners. Goal 2 will establish a replicable NDD dental training model in partnership with CU Anschutz's JFK Partners University Center of Excellence in Developmental Disabilities (UCEDD) and Leadership Education in Neurodevelopmental Disabilities (LEND) programs, building competency in 100% of SHS dental providers and staff with patient touchpoints and integrating NDD-specific training into the CU Anschutz clinical rotation curriculum for the first time. Goal 3 will implement and evaluate a child life-integrated dental care model in which 75% of NDD patients achieve progress on an established dental treatment plan and 85% of caregivers report a positive visit experience, generating documented implementation findings for dissemination to peer health centers. As the only nurse-led academic FQHC in Colorado, SHS is uniquely positioned to develop, evaluate, and disseminate this model to the growing number of nurse-managed and community health centers serving similar populations. The patient-centered, relationship-based care philosophy embedded in nurse-led practice aligns naturally with the child life integration, sensory-adapted environment, and individualized comfort planning at the center of this project, making the model developed at SHS directly suited to adoption by other nurse-led FQHCs serving children with NDDs. Project findings will be shared through HRSA's QIF-DNDD community of practice, peer-reviewed publication through CU Anschutz's academic platform, and the CU health professions training pipeline, creating a workforce multiplier effect that extends well beyond SHS's own patient panel. The project director serves on the boards of the Colorado Community Health Network and Carina, providing direct dissemination channels to Colorado's FQHC community, and SHS's national engagement through the National Association of Community Health Centers will extend the model's reach to peer health centers across the country.
