06/08/2026
Our Integrated Care Director, Aniela Brown, took the stage at the TxOHC Summit to share what drives progress in CHCs across Texas. đź’š
This afternoon's plenary session at the TxOHC Summit brought together leaders from across the healthcare landscape to explore what it really takes to build coordinated, scalable, and sustainable models of integrated care in Texas.
When asked what it would take to shift how decision-makers think about oral health, Ensy Atarod pointed to the need for a fundamental mindset shift: "If I had a magic wand, it would be changing the culture and the rhetoric around oral health."
Aniela Brown highlighted what drives progress in community health centers across Texas, even amid financial constraints and competing priorities: "The power of relationships is so critical. It's relationships with your staff, it's relationships with your patients, it's the networking that happens at the summit."
Tonya Fuqua explained what it ultimately means to get integration right, and what success looks like across every sector of care: "The only way for any of us to be number one is that we made patient outcomes positive."
The conversation made clear that medical-dental integration is not just a clinical model. It is a systems, financing, and workforce issue, and the promising work already underway in Texas is proof that progress is possible.
Thank you to our panelists on From Parallel Systems to Connected Care: Advancing Medical-Dental Integration in Texas, Ensy Atarod, DDS, MPH, CHCQM, Texas Health and Human Services Commission; Aniela Brown, MSW, Texas Association of Community Health Centers (TACHC); and Tonya Fuqua, DDS, Cook Children's Health Care System.
