05/17/2020
May 15,2020
Dear Friends and Patients-
It is with great pleasure that I announce that we will be reopening our dental office on Tuesday May 26th. Although Governor Hogan has allowed us to resume operations sooner, we will be using the next week to install new equipment for the office and also to fine tune new protocols for your appointment. Here are a few of the changes and new protocols that we are making.
We will be following closely the CDC (Centers For Disease Control) and ADA (American Dental Association) guidelines for appointment protocols. So for your next appointment, things will be a lot different from what you have experienced in the past with us. Let’s say that you have a cleaning appointment tomorrow. Here is what you can expect:
Questionnaire: The day before your appointment we will be contacting you by text or phone with a short questionnaire to make sure that you are healthy and have not been exposed to the Corona Virus in the past 14 days.
No waiting room: When you come to the office for your appointment, we ask that you stay in your car until we text/call you to let you know that we are ready for you. At that point, you will come up to the office and we will open the door for you (it will be otherwise locked). Please wear a mask on your way into the office and again after your treatment is completed.
Temperature check: Upon walking in, we will ask you to use hand sanitizer that is by the front door and we will take your temperature with a touchless thermometer to ensure that you are healthy for your appointment.
Pre-rinse: Either Corinne or Shirley will walk you back to their room and have you do a 30 second rinse with a weak solution of hydrogen peroxide; this helps inactivate the bacteria and germs in your mouth before they start their work.
Room Sanitation: After each appointment and in preparation for the next patient, the room is cleaned and wiped down thoroughly according to the strict CDC guidelines to ensure against any cross contamination.
Again, as per the CDC and the ADA, we will be looking a lot different! In addition to the normal gloves and masks that we have always used, we will be wearing a surgical gown to cover our uniforms. In many cases, we will be wearing 2 masks! One will be an N95 mask that protects you and us from any back and forth transmission of germs and a second mask over the N95 mask to help keep it uncontaminated. And lastly, we will be wearing a face shield to protect our eyes and areas of the face not covered by the mask(s). Try not to be scared when you see us- we are still the same gentle souls, just with a few more layers!
Now as I have already mentioned several times, the protocols and Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) adhere precisely to the CDC and ADA guidelines. But this is just the baseline for us. Our office is going well beyond these guidelines to ensure healthy air quality throughout the office. Dental procedures can produce aerosols in the air that might contain germs from your mouth. To that end, we are installing various new pieces of equipment to rapidly and thoroughly remove these aerosols from the air. These measures include but are not limited to:
Doubling the Normal High Velocity Suction: When you get your teeth cleaned or have a tooth repaired, I am sure you always notice Kyleigh, Shirley or Corinne use suction to keep your mouth dry and remove the aerosol. We are installing a second suction line in each room for double the suction power to catch all the aerosols produced during your appointment.
Air Purification: The CDC recommends that the HVAC system in a dental office have 6 air changes per hour; this is standard for most office buildings. We are installing surgically clean air purifiers in each operatory that will change the air in that room 20 times an hour- that is changing the air over every 3 minutes! Check out the company’s website for more info: https://surgicallycleanair.com/jade/
Air Cleaning: We have also installed a unit that cleans the air of the entire office by using the same technology that NASA uses to keep the air in the Space Station healthy. It purifies the air by emitting molecules that attack and inactivate bacteria, viruses, mold and fungi in the air and on surfaces. For more information on this technology, look into the website: https://www.uvairx.com.
So there you have it. We have updated and created new systems to keep you safe and we will look a little different when you come for your next appointment. But there is one thing that has not changed at all and that is our commitment to creating the best dental experience possible with our friendly and caring staff as well as providing the highest quality of dentistry and the most dazzling smiles.
We can’t wait to see you- there’s only so long that we can sleep late, read books, bake bread, take long walks and cut the grass. It’s time to get back to work. And as always, feel free to call me with any questions or concerns at 410-952-4497.
See you soon!!
Rob Minch
