Dientes Community Dental Clinic, Inc.

Who are the people you serve with your mission?

Dientes provides preventative dental care and affordable treatment for thousands living in poverty, serving nearly 12,000 publicly insured and uninsured patients 0-100+. These patients include adults, seniors, children, patients who are homeless, patients with HIV/AIDs, patients with physical or mental disabilities, farmworkers and their families, and others who lack access to care. Approximately half of our patients are children. 96% of our patients live at or below the federal poverty level.

How is your organization collecting feedback from the people you serve?

Focus groups or interviews (by phone or in person), Community meetings/Town halls, Constituent (client or resident, etc.) advisory committees, Suggestion box/email,

How is your organization using feedback from the people you serve?

To identify and remedy poor client service experiences, To identify bright spots and enhance positive service experiences, To make fundamental changes to our programs and/or operations, To inform the development of new programs/projects, To identify where we are less inclusive or equitable across demographic groups, To strengthen relationships with the people we serve,

What significant change resulted from feedback?

In past patient satisfaction surveys, we received feedback that the time it took for our front office staff to respond to patients was too long. To improve operations and address this feedback, we updated our phone systems and added other channels of communication that patients could use to reach out, including email and text messages. We also changed our appointment confirmation system to make it easier for patients, using text messages whenever possible. Finally, we implemented a call center so that we have designated staff whose sole focus is to answer phones. Together these changes will help our front office staff promptly get back to patients. In our next patient survey, we will include a question evaluating satisfaction with response times to measure the impact of these actions.

With whom is the organization sharing feedback?

Our staff, Our board, Our funders, Our community partners,

How has asking for feedback from the people you serve changed your relationship?

We value the insights and wisdom our patients have on how we can better serve them, and we see incorporating their feedback as a critical step to achieving our goals. One of the biggest ways we have shifted power to the people we serve is by adding patients to our Board of Directors. We are proud that 50% of our board is comprised of patient members. The board is responsible for overseeing critical strategic decisions, resources, and company policies. This has fundamentally changed the relationship we have with the people we serve, giving them direct influence in our organizational direction and oversight.

Which of the following feedback practices does your organization routinely carry out?

We collect feedback from the people we serve at least annually, We take steps to get feedback from marginalized or under-represented people, We aim to collect feedback from as many people we serve as possible, We take steps to ensure people feel comfortable being honest with us, We look for patterns in feedback based on demographics (e.g., race, age, gender, etc.), We look for patterns in feedback based on people’s interactions with us (e.g., site, frequency of service, etc.), We act on the feedback we receive,

What challenges does the organization face when collecting feedback?

We don't have any major challenges to collecting feedback,