Jessica August, MSDH, RDH, CDA, FADHA, is the 100th president of the American Dental Hygienists’ Association and assistant dean of Allied Dental Education Programs at Yakima Valley College. Drawing on nearly two decades in clinical practice, education, and leadership, August discusses an expanding role for dental hygienists, the importance of creating sustainable careers, and opportunities for dentists and hygienists to collaborate more effectively as dentistry moves toward a more preventive, accessible, and integrated model of care.
Inside Dentistry (ID): What changes or emerging trends in dental hygiene should the broader dental profession be paying particularly close attention to right now?
Jessica August, MSDH, RDH, CDA, FADHA: One of the most important shifts in dental hygiene is the evolution of the dental hygienist’s role from a professional primarily associated with a procedure to a healthcare professional with a much broader role in prevention, risk assessment, patient education, care coordination, and health promotion.
That shift is being driven by several forces at once. We have a deeper understanding of the connection between oral health and overall health, growing demand for preventive care, persistent access to care challenges, and a dental hygiene workforce that is ready to practice differently. At the same time, we are seeing rapid advances in diagnostics and artificial intelligence, continued conversations around expanded scope of practice, greater interest in medical-dental integration, and new models of care designed to bring preventive services closer to where people live and receive healthcare.
The dental profession should be paying close attention to what these changes mean for the future of the dental team and how care is delivered. We need to consider whether we are fully leveraging the education, training, and expertise of every member of the team. That is not simply a workforce question. It is a patient care question.
Dental hygiene has always been grounded in prevention. What is changing is the recognition that prevention is not just one component of a dental appointment. Prevention is healthcare. Dental hygienists are uniquely positioned to contribute to that work, and the profession has an opportunity to help lead dentistry toward a more preventive, accessible, and integrated model of care.
ID: What changes are you seeing in what dental hygienists expect from their workplaces, and what can practices do to create environments in which hygienists can build more rewarding careers?
August: Dental hygienists are redefining what a successful career looks like. Compensation matters, of course, but today’s dental hygienists are also looking for professional respect, clinical autonomy, career satisfaction, room to grow, flexibility, and a workplace culture that recognizes and values them as healthcare professionals.
For practices, that means recognizing that the value of the hygiene department extends far beyond keeping the schedule full. Dental hygienists bring clinical knowledge and judgment that can influence prevention, periodontal health, patient education, treatment acceptance, retention, and the overall patient experience. Their contribution extends well beyond the procedure they perform.
Practices that are positioned for the future will create environments where dental hygienists are active participants in patient care and practice development. That means listening to their clinical perspective, investing in continuing education, creating opportunities for leadership and advancement, and inviting hygienists to contribute beyond the operatory.
There is also a critical retention lesson here. ADHA has looked closely at the workforce data, and the message is clear: we are facing a retention crisis. Recruitment matters, but bringing qualified dental hygienists into the profession is only part of the solution. We also need to ask a harder question: are we creating workplaces worth staying in?
People stay where they feel valued, heard, and empowered to make a difference. If we want to strengthen the dental workforce, we cannot recruit our way out of a retention problem. We need to build professional environments where dental hygienists can thrive—where they are respected for their expertise, supported in their work, and able to build sustainable, rewarding careers with a future in the profession.
ID: Where do you see opportunities for dentists and hygienists to collaborate differently or more effectively as oral healthcare delivery continues to evolve?
August: I see a great opportunity for dentistry to move from a procedure-centered model of care to one that is more person-centered, preventive, and team-based.
Dentists and dental hygienists have different and complementary areas of expertise, and the greatest gains come from intentionally leveraging those differences. Dental hygienists bring deep knowledge in prevention, periodontal care, risk assessment, patient education, and behavior change. Dentists bring expertise in restorative care and complex treatment planning. When those strengths are integrated rather than siloed, patients receive more comprehensive care, and the entire team can contribute fully within its expertise.
We also need to think differently about where and how care is delivered. If a patient cannot easily access a traditional dental office, the answer should not always be that they simply need to find a way to get there. Community-based care, teledentistry, medical-dental integration, and other emerging models allow us to bring preventive services to patients earlier and in settings that are more accessible to them.
That requires trust, communication, and collaboration across the dental team. Instead of asking, “Who gets to provide this service?” we should be asking, “What does this patient need, and how can our team work together to deliver the right care, from the right professional, at the right time?”
That is the kind of collaboration that will allow dentistry to expand its reach, improve the patient experience, and ultimately improve the health of the communities we serve.
ID: Looking at the profession as a whole, what larger change would you most like the dental community to understand and support over the next several years?
August: The change I most want to see is a real shift in how we think about oral healthcare. I believe dentistry can lead that change by putting prevention, collaboration, and the patient at the center of care. Oral healthcare is healthcare, and prevention is healthcare.
For too long, oral health has been treated as separate from the rest of the healthcare conversation. Yet the mouth does not exist in isolation from the rest of the body. Oral health affects a person’s ability to eat, speak, socialize, and work, and it plays an important role in overall health and quality of life.
If we truly believe that prevention matters, then we need to build systems that make preventive care more accessible and empower the professionals who are educated and trained to provide it.
That means embracing new approaches to care, strengthening collaboration across healthcare disciplines, and supporting dental hygienists to contribute fully to prevention and health promotion. It also means being willing to examine the assumptions, policies, and structures that have defined dental care for generations and ask whether they continue to serve patients as well as they could.
The future of dentistry should not be defined by protecting traditional roles or preserving traditional models of care. It should be defined by building the strongest possible healthcare team around the patient.
If we can make that shift, we can expand access, strengthen prevention, and change how patients experience and value oral healthcare. That is the future of dentistry I believe we should build: one where the patient, prevention, and health are at the center of everything we do.
