SOD staff member writing feedback on SOD strategic plan at fall EXCEL 2024 event.After months of planning and stakeholder input, the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) School of Dentistry (SOD) has launched a new strategic plan, Advancing Oral Health. Designed through a comprehensive and collaborative approach, its framework aligns with UAB's Forging Ahead five-year strategic plan for 2024-2028 and aims to improve lives locally and globally.
The development of the school’s new plan began in 2023 and involved extensive input from employees, students, and alumni. Adopting UAB's shared values: We CARE, a strategic planning working group collected feedback on updated vision and mission statements and utilized multidisciplinary teams to draft strategic goals and objectives, which were refined through stakeholder feedback.
“With UAB’s adoption of Forging Ahead, teams of faculty, staff, and students crafted a strategic plan to guide our school into the future, their work informed along the way by stakeholder input.” — Nicolaas Geurs, D.D.S., M.S., Dean
The plan features four pillars—Education, Research, Community Engagement, and Patient Care—and two foundations—Access and Financial Sustainability. These elements are designed to amplify Forging Ahead.
The new plan builds on the success of past ones. It features a refreshed vision and mission, adds foundations to the four pillars, and includes goals and strategies to achieve them, as well as measurements of success. The framework represents a team effort to improve oral health for all.
The commitment to innovating and improving oral health for all, and the collaborative nature of this strategic planning process, are evident in how leaders from the different pillar groups came together to shape the school’s future.
The Education Pillar supports a dynamic, evidence-based curriculum that develops compassionate, ethical, and highly skilled oral health professionals. It incorporates new and emerging techniques and technologies to prepare students to serve diverse oral health needs. A key priority is to create a collaborative environment that supports the well-being and professional development of students, faculty, and staff.
The Community Engagement Pillar facilitates opportunities for students, faculty, and staff through strategic partnerships. Collaborating within the UAB community and across the state provides students with a wide range of experiences while improving the overall health and well-being of the people of Alabama and beyond.
The Research Pillar builds upon the school’s rich history of discovery by continuing to drive innovation in oral health research. This includes growing funding, optimizing infrastructure, and promoting interdisciplinary collaborations. Enhancing research visibility and developing the next generation of scholars are also key priorities.
The Patient Care Pillar emphasizes deliberate and smart strategies to remain on the cutting edge and innovate in ways that measurably improve patient outcomes. The goal is to improve patient access, engagement, and satisfaction, ensuring that care is tailored to individual needs. Patient care priorities drive clinical education programs, with treatment plans that are phased and sequenced. Infrastructure is being developed to support quality care delivery by integrating clinical services across the SOD and the UAB Health System.
Setting the stage for success are the two new foundations – access and financial stability.
The Access Foundation promotes the success of all oral health efforts by increasing access and reducing barriers. It aims to grow community engagement and ensure everyone benefits from programming. Diverse health care delivery models will enhance access to care, while expanded development and recruitment pathways will support future oral health care providers and foster holistic growth.
The Financial Stability Foundation focuses on maintaining financial stability to continue providing top-notch education, research, and patient care. This includes optimizing resource use, identifying revenue opportunities, and engaging alumni and supporters to expand philanthropy.
As the School of Dentistry sunset its former strategic plan, recent accomplishments include innovation across departments, expanded programming, and critical infrastructure improvements such as enlarged classes, additional faculty and staff, and enhanced facilities. Outreach has increased with the opening of the state-of-the-art UAB Dentistry Dothan clinic, where student rotations began last summer. The clinic provides students with valuable exposure to practice in other parts of the state while serving an underserved community.
The newly crafted strategic plan was shared with stakeholders in October 2024 and presented to institutional leaders in November. The process was described as a journey of innovation and collaboration, with the ultimate goal of creating a brighter future for students, faculty, and the communities served.