Our vision

The seven Dutch educational institutions for oral care and dentistry have joined forces in ORANGEHealth. In addition to education they conduct research and provide care. These seven partners are the initiators of a multi-year program in which they, together with public and private parties, are shaping the future of (oral) care and (oral) health, with special attention to prevention, the right care in the right place, interprofessional cooperation and attention to vulnerable groups. The consortium gives substance to the increasingly resounding call for more collaboration between oral health care and general health care.

The strategy to achieve the goals consists of three key focus areas that simultaneously interact with each other.

Research and Development of Tools for Innovation
This part of the program focuses on three themes:

Identifying/discovering biomarkers in the mouth to create a fundamental understanding of the most common oral disease processes (such as caries and periodontitis) and using the mouth for general health indications.
Developing innovative tools (sensors) to support healthcare professionals and/or individuals at home in searching for/detecting relevant markers, thereby monitoring oral and general health status, and signaling abnormalities that indicate disease.
Providing a course of action for both healthcare professionals and patients to intervene as early as possible to tackle and/or manage the (oral or other) disease and/or prevent further spread of the disease.

In the next stage, we will also work on the development and validation of model systems for preclinical investigation of the positive or negative effects of biomaterials, food ingredients, and oral care products on hard and soft tissues in the oral cavity. This will reduce the need for animal experiments in preclinical testing.

Innovative (oral) healthcare approaches for older people

This part of the program takes place in the physical environment where the elderly receive health care from oral care professionals and other care providers. This can be at home, but also, for example, in a care institution. Oral health and general health are monitored here simultaneously. Using supportive diagnostics, data is collected and interpreted. These will become available to healthcare providers who can choose adequate care strategies and interventions. This part is called the ‘field lab’. The field lab also provides information to the two other lines of research and uses their input in practice.

Sensing the oral cavity

The saliva quantity and quality of the oral ecosystem form the basis of this research line. After all, saliva is the innate defender of the oral cavity. Salivary flow in combination with the salivary composition, is representative for the oral health status and also reflects many, if not all, blood plasma parameters used to screen, monitor and diagnose many systemic conditions. This knowledge is still in its infancy but has great potential because saliva sampling has a minimal burden on the patient. This project focuses in particular on dry mouth problems. The Dry Mouth Syndrome (DMS) is typically a problem in older people, where poly-pharmacy or Sjogren’s syndrome are causative factors, and which eventually is a strong risk factor for caries and periodontitis.

Unlocking and Linking oral health data

Shared data is a prerequisite for effective collaboration in primary care. This is not yet the case. In this program component, oral health data from various sources will be collected to monitor the state of oral health in the Netherlands, with a focus on the older patient. In addition, through dental practices and general practitioners (family doctors), we will use data from electronic patient records to establish the relationship between oral health and general health. This approach through practices is new and requires new technological solutions. Practices throughout the country are willing to contribute to this effort.