Prepare Your Dental Office For COVID-19
Jacob Sigmon
DENTISTRY BEYOND THE SHUTDOWN:
Below are some ideas on how one office is planning to come back safer and stronger. Think about ways how you can help combat and improve your protective measures.
N95 masks must be worn by all clinical team members.
Currently we will re-use N95's 4 times until supplies are sufficient to dispose of with each patient use, by wearing a surgical mask over the N95. Each N95 will be stored in a paper bag with your name on it.
CDC Patient Disclosure and Temperature Check: Each patient will complete the pretreatment disclosure form, and we will take their temperature prior to treating them. Just like blood pressure check, add this to our list. Anyone exhibiting 100.0 degrees or higher will be re-appointed for another day, 14+ days or longer.
Oral Rinse: prior to ALL/EVERY dental appointment. Patients will gargle with 2 parts mouth wash, 1 part 3% hydrogen peroxide for 60 seconds.
Use of Rubber Dam: Use of rubber dam under ALL aerosol creating situations is highly recommended. In addition, bathe the isolated teeth with chlorhexidine wash, prior to prepping with high speed drilling. Ivoclar Vivadent makes OptraDam which would be perfect for this situation.
Hygiene: Cavitron use only with HVAC or ISOLITE use. Saliva ejector is not sufficient.
HVAC and Aerosoles: The goals for actions 4, 5, and 6 are to limit the amount of aerosol that we allowed to escape from oral cavity. Techniques for assistance holding the vacuum, the angle and positioning the vacuum are all meant to capture the spray or aerosol and vacuum it away before we have a chance to inhale it. In addition, the DentAirVac system and Air Purification system noted later will also help.
OPERATORY PRE-PREP: Procedure set up in the operatory needs to be timely, prior to patient's visit obviously, but not left out for hours to allow room aerosols to settle on the exposed instruments and cassettes. Therefore room set up should be completed as close to the patient's visit time as possible, or draped/covered if there's a waiting time between set up and the actual appointment time.
CASSETTE: Wrap cassette for storage to keep them from aerosols within the clinical area.
OPERATORY CABINETS: Must remain closed during treatment and aerosol creation. Room set up needs to be complete prior to initiating a procedure.
Face Shields: Multiple use available for each team member or single use disposable. Recommend for high splatter situations.
Surgical Clean Air Systems: We will have 5 JADE units to be spread throughout operatory to help cleanse and decrease aerosol.
DentVacAir systems: We will receive 5 units. Like an HVAC system, it's a 12"x12"x15" vacuum on wheels with hepa and carbon filtration. It has an "elephant snout" that's placed next to the patient's mouth during high aerosol treatment situations.
Isolation gowns – disposable isolation gowns will be available for use under high aerosol situations.
Hair Bouffants – available for high aerosol situations. Disposable.
COVID Testing Hopeful Future Plan: We can test patients with an oral saliva/mucus swab; test takes 5 minutes to show results. We can screen our team and our patients.
Jacob Sigmon, with Atlanta Dental Supply, helps dental offices with all facets of running a practice successfully.
If you would like more information, please contact at jacobsigmon@atlantadental.com