CLEVELAND — Workforce shortages continue to plague Northeast Ohio, but there is a specific area of healthcare with growing shortages and delays but no solution in sight. Dentist offices are booked and busy, but there is a big problem.
"There's a shortage across the state and Northeast Ohio," said Dr. Tom Kelly, immediate past president of the Ohio Dental Association.
Dr. Tom Kelly has a dental practice in Beachwood and has been experiencing the shortages first-hand. He said retention rates with dental hygienists, assistants, administrative staff, receptionists, schedule assistants, and expanded function dental auxiliaries, also known as EFDA's, started becoming an issue in 2015, but the pandemic pushed the problem over the edge.
"Coming back from that, there were greater shortages," Kelly said. "Then the training programs for dental hygienists and assistants did not recover as quickly."
Across Ohio, there are only 13 accredited dental hygienist programs, 4 of which are in Northeast Ohio. Programs can only have around 20 students per year in a class due to the hands-on nature of the training, and almost all programs in Northeast Ohio are a year behind.
"In our area, the good news is most of our students stay," said Jennifer Barr, program director of dental hygiene at Lakeland Community College. "So, they stay local and are really helping to fill some of those staffing issues that we are experiencing."
But, the programs can't meet the demand from dental offices. In Northeast Ohio, each year, around 60 to 80 students graduate from dental programs and those programs are filled. This is the breakdown:
- Cuyahoga County Community College accepts 22 students yearly and is waitlisted until Fall 2025.
- Lorain Community College accepts 21 students a year and is waitlisted until fall 2024.
- Lakeland Community College accepts 20 students a year and is waitlisted until fall 2024.
News 5 is still waiting to hear back from Stark State Community College.
"The more rural the area, the more produced the shortages are," Kelly added. "A lot of that has to do with the population, the pool of folks to draw from."
To help bridge the growing gap between skilled employees and employers, the Greater Cleveland Partnership was awarded $5.8 million in federal funding last year to combat the issue, but the program involving dental apprenticeships won't start until this fall.
"The dental fields dental assistant roles are a super high demand occupation," said Mike Glavin, vice president of talent at the Greater Cleveland Partnership. "We think it is a really cool fit for registered apprenticeships."
Kelly recently traveled to Washington and last Wednesday to the state house to talk to state representatives about ways to improve the shortage and increase state funding for dental training. Kelly said in the next five years, a third of dental hygienists will retire, so legislation and industry-wide change need to start now.
"It's great to work in a dental office, and it's just a great environment to be in, so we are doing what we can," Kelly said.
Watch live and local news any time:
Download the News 5 Cleveland app now for more stories from us, plus alerts on major news, the latest weather forecast, traffic information and much more. Download now on your Apple device here, and your Android device here.
You can also catch News 5 Cleveland on Roku, Apple TV, Amazon Fire TV, YouTube TV, DIRECTV NOW, Hulu Live and more. We're also on Amazon Alexa devices. Learn more about our streaming options here.
