Deliberative Improvement of Oral Care Quality: The Horizon Europe DELIVER Project

DELIVER (DELiberative ImproVEment of oRal care quality) is a multinational project funded under the EU’s Horizon Europe program; we aim to develop a blueprint model for improving the quality of oral health care for everyone: the DELIVER Quality Improvement Model. We are a team of partners from Denmark, England, Germany, Malta, the Netherlands, Portugal, and Sweden who will use a mixed-methods research approach to create a synergistic problem-solving ecosystem to convert deliberative dialogues into meaningful support for improving the quality of oral health care. Together with citizens/patients, providers, payers, and policymakers, new quality improvement (QI) approaches will be codeveloped and coproduced in 3 phases (over 4 y): phase 1 involves defining quality of oral health care, situational analysis of the status quo of QI, and consenting of core quality indicators for a Europe-wide monitoring framework. Phase 2 involves in-depth analysis of select QI approaches: 1) QI in dental practices based on patient-reported outcome and experience measures (PROMs/PREMs), 2) community-based QI for vulnerable groups, and 3) quality-oriented commissioning of oral health services. In addition, the regulatory determinants of oral health care QI will be scrutinized. In phase 3, the knowledge gained from phases 1 and 2 will be used to develop the DELIVER Quality Toolkit, a resource containing manuals and digital tools to support context-specific implementation of oral health care QI. DELIVER is anticipated to contribute to positive changes in oral health systems.