who

were providing care and services to low-income, uninsured, underserved patients.

But they pulled together a coalition that included all sorts of groups that were also serving that population of patients.

So they had groups that were involved in affordable housing, groups involved with other social service things, helping people who had food insecurity, So there was somewhere in the neighborhood of 50 organizations that were supportive of this concept of trying to improve access to care, because that was not a new problem for Minnesota or anywhere in the United States.

We've been struggling with that for decades.

And they saw bringing a dental therapist on as being a new possible tool that could be used in this effort to get more care to more people.

They contacted legislators and started having that conversation in 2007.

How has the dental therapy program curriculum shifted over time?