The Centre for Advanced Dental Research & Care, a clinical and research partnership between Sinai Health System and the University of Toronto Faculty of Dentistry, with the philanthropic and leadership support of dentalcorp, was announced recently.
Dedicated to addressing some of the most misunderstood and complex dental, periodontal and orofacial conditions, the centre will be chaired by Dr. Howard Tenenbaum, Dentist-in-Chief at Sinai Health System.
The centre will bring together clinical care and research, providing the opportunity to facilitate the best new discoveries for patient care. Sinai Health System will draw upon its longstanding partnership with the University of Toronto, Faculty of Dentistry to support the centre’s mission. Dental researchers at the University of Toronto’s Faculty of Dentistry will use advanced diagnostics and discovery science research to identify the underlying causes of periodontal, implant and oro-maxillofacial conditions and design and disseminate treatment protocols for these conditions. The centre will also explore the psycho-social implications of such conditions.
Each year, patients with complex oral conditions are referred to American centres for treatment of conditions where no current care is available in Canada. To address this issue and stem the rising costs to Ontario’s healthcare system, the centre will support dentists at Mount Sinai Hospital, part of Sinai Health System, to expand their specialised focus and to increase access to care for these patients.
“We are passionate about improving oral health across the country and committed to advancing the field of dentistry,” says Mr. Graham Rosenberg, Chief Executive Officer at dentalcorp. “This partnership provides us the opportunity to support a cause that champions the care and health of Canadians, especially those who continue to suffer from complex and hard to treat conditions.”
It is expected that hundreds of patients will be seen in the first year alone, with rapid growth projected for future years.
The centre is the first of its kind in North America and is aligned with Sinai Health System’s mandate to care for and target discovery science of complex health conditions. Failed dental implants, for instance, are expected to increase over the next few decades in our ageing population. This centre’s goal is to develop world-leading diagnostics and care standards to put Canada at the vanguard of patient dental care.
The generous financial support from dentalcorp will allow the centre to provide research-based clinical care to patients suffering from numerous complex conditions and will fund research and laboratory operations at University of Toronto, Faculty of Dentistry to support the centre. It will also support its academic mandate by offering training opportunities to speciality graduate students and dental residents. As planning for the Centre makes headway, dentalcorp will provide strategic leadership and operating expertise to ensure the long-term objectives of the centre are met.
“The University of Toronto’s Faculty of Dentistry is excited to further its research mission with our partner, Sinai Health System. This investment will advance academic dentistry in Canada, allowing us to serve a complex patient population while conducting the research that will be groundbreaking internationally in establishing evidence-based protocols and care pathways where no such standards or research exist in the world,” said Daniel Haas, DDS, PhD, FRCD(C), Professor and Dean, Arthur Zwingenberger Decanal Chair, University of Toronto.
Dr. Gary Newton, incoming President and CEO of Sinai Health System, lauds the dentalcorp gift and the partnership: “This generous gift and the partnership dentalcorp have facilitated represents the core values of Sinai Health System. We operate in partnership, bringing the best resources possible together to target complex health conditions.”
