OFFICE SAFETY MEASURES
Office Safety Measures
At Clifton Park Dental, the safety and health of our patients and staff has always been and will continue to be our highest priority. Our dental office has always been compliant with recommendations made by the American Dental Association (ADA), the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) in order to ensure the implementation of the highest standard of infection control in our office.
During this challenging time where the impact of COVID-19 is evolving and changing, we recognize the importance of expanding our proactive approach to be able to treat our patients in a safe environment. It is our job as dental healthcare providers to do everything we can to make our patients feel secure and comfortable receiving dental care at Clifton Park Dental.
To this end, we are adding enhanced safety measures to our current infection control protocol to ensure the well-being of our patients and staff.
CONTENTS
1. Team Training and Education
2. Recommendations for Our Team
3. Patient Pre-Screening and Social Distancing
4. Measures Upon Arrival
5. Clinical Team Protocols
6. Treatment Room Changes
7. Additional Dental Treatment Procedures
========================================================================================================2. Recommendations for Our Team
3. Patient Pre-Screening and Social Distancing
4. Measures Upon Arrival
5. Clinical Team Protocols
6. Treatment Room Changes
7. Additional Dental Treatment Procedures
TEAM TRAINING AND EDUCATION
One of the most important things we are doing at this time is to train and educate our staff.
- All our staff members have had refresher training in proper hand washing techniques. Hand washing is one of the simplest yet most effective ways to prevent the spread of the virus. We will continue to ensure that our team members are washing their hands frequently and properly.
- They have practiced the appropriate use of Personal Protective Equipment prior to caring for a patient to prevent contamination.
- We encourage staff that is not feeling well to proactively stay home until they are symptom free for 72 hours.
- All staff will be required to have their temperature checked twice daily – once in the am prior to commencement of the workday and once in the pm prior to the start of the afternoon schedule. Anyone with a temperature above 100.4 F will be immediately sent home.
- We are implementing a recommendation checklist for our employees to follow so they remain healthy both upon arrival and departure from work (see Checklist of Recommendations for Our Team).
RECOMMENDATIONS FOR OUR TEAM
Before coming to work
- Take temperature – employees do not go into work if they or any other family member are experiencing symptoms
- Leave watches, jewelry and any other accessories at home
- For employees delivering patient care, keep long hair tied up
- Bring work clothes in a washable or disposable bag
- Change into work clothes and shoes upon arrival
- Use PPE as appropriate
- Leave all personal items outside of patient treatment rooms
- Disinfect phone handset after use
- Prohibit use of personal cell phone during working hours
- Wash hands with antibacterial soap
- Remove work clothes and place in washable bag to take home or leave at work to be cleaned on site or by laundry service
- Remove work shoes and leave at designated work shoe area
- Wash hands again and put clean clothes and shoes on
- Sanitize personal items to be taken home
- Wash hands again before leaving office
- Do not touch anything
- Remove shoes and clothes
- If bringing work clothes home, place directly in washing machine and wash immediately
- Wash hands
- Shower immediately before touching anything or any family member (including pets)
PATIENT PRE-SCREENING AND SOCIAL DISTANCING
Phone Pre-Screening Questionnaire
- We are implementing a COVID-19 questionnaire in which patients will be asked pertinent health questions over the phone prior to their appointment. This will help us to effectively pre-screen patients for COVID and eliminate those posing a high risk of disease transmission from coming into our office for an appointment. These patients will be rescheduled to a date at which we feel they will not pose a risk to our staff and patients
- Instruct patients to call our office and reschedule their appointment if they develop symptoms related to COVID on the day they are scheduled to be seen
Social Distancing
- Eliminate waiting room for “waiting”. All patients will be asked to call our office upon arrival in our parking lot for their scheduled appointment. We ask that patients refrain from entering our office building until they are called in by a team member. This will help to reduce the number of patients congregating in the waiting room and encourages proper social distancing.
- If a patient is being accompanied, their escort should wait in the car to limit the number of people in the waiting room and promote social distancing
- For a child receiving dental treatment, only one parent will be allowed to accompany them into the building
- When scheduling patients, we are allowing more time in between appointments to avoid high congestion in the dental office
- IMPLEMENTATION OF A NO HANDSHAKE ZONE THROUGHOUT OFFICE
MEASURES UPON ARRIVAL
Patients
- Upon entry into office, pre-screening questionnaire will be administered by staff member
- Escorted to a hand sanitizing station to sanitize hands
- No touch temperature taking of all patients prior to entry into a dental treatment room. If patient exhibits a fever (100.4 F or higher), they will be given a mask and asked to seek medical treatment and appointment is terminated for the day
Office/Waiting Room
- All waiting room seating has been placed a minimum of 6 feet apart to ensure social distancing in the event you must wait in the waiting room
- Removal of all magazines, toys and displays to eliminate potential cross contamination
- Frequent sanitization of waiting room, bathroom, door handles, light switches and chair lift
- Office doors will be left open to reduce contact with door handles
- Tissues and no-touch garbage receptacles will be provided in waiting room/front desk area and bathrooms
- No touch soap dispensers will be placed in bathrooms
- Air purification units will be placed in waiting room, office and all office treatment rooms
- Visual alerts posted at office entrance, waiting room and bathrooms to advise patients not to enter office if ill, how and when to perform hand hygiene, how to use tissues and proper cough etiquette
CLINICAL TEAM PROTOCOLS
We have and always will diligently employ all OSHA sterilization and infection controls to the highest standard. This include following standard and transmission-based precautions in our treatment rooms but with greater attention to detail to ensure that procedures are followed consistently and correctly. We are always approaching every treatment or procedure with the same philosophy: All patients have the potential to be infectious and therefore the ability to transmit disease is always present. How we treat the COVID virus is essentially the same except that as an office we have now expanded the scope and territory of infection control measures to ensure the lowest risk of disease transmission.
Hand Hygiene is performed by our staff
- Before and after any patient contact, contact with any potential infectious material, before putting on and after removing PPE including gloves
- After removing PPE in order to remove any pathogens that could be transferred to bare hands during the removal process
- Washing hands with soap and water for at least 20 seconds
- Wear PPE which includes masks, gloves, eye protection, face shields. Disposable caps, gowns and N95 masks will be used for selected procedures when this PPE becomes available
- Masks are to be used once and discarded
- Put on eye protection, goggles or face shields that cover both the front and sides of the face upon entry to the treatment room
- Removal of eye protection before leaving treatment room
- Reusable eye protection will be cleaned and disinfected according to manufacturer’s instructions prior to sterilization with a UV sterilizer
- Put on clean, non-sterile gloves upon entry into treatment room
- Change gloves if they become torn or heavily soiled
- Remove and discard gloves before leaving treatment room and immediately wash hands
- Put on a clean surgical gown or lab coat upon entry into the treatment room
- Remove or discard gown or lab coat before leaving treatment room. Disposable gowns will be discarded, and cloth gowns/lab coats will be laundered
- Shoe covers will be made available for staff to wear during select procedures
TREATMENT ROOM CHANGES
Everything that is done by our team in preparation for treatment, during treatment and after treatment is completed is done with the sole intention of creating and maintaining a clean, germ free workspace. We want to minimize the opportunity to cause cross contamination or transmission of infectious disease. Most dental procedures generate microscopic droplets and particles that are aerosolized into the air. Bacteria and viruses can be included in those aerosolized particles. Because COVID-19 is a new virus that we are still learning about, Clifton Park Dental has decided to take extra precautions in order to provide our patients and staff with the safest dental experience possible.
We are proud and excited to share these additional safety measures:
ADS Extraoral Dental Suction System
- Each treatment room will now be equipped with the new ADS Extraoral Dental Suction System. The ADS Extraoral Dental Suction System is a medical grade filtration system that uses 3 layers of HEPA filtration, water vapor filtration and a UV light disinfectant system to reduce droplet and aerosol spray that is a normal part of dental care. The ADS Extraoral Dental Suction System is used to protect patients and staff by eliminating airborne bacteria, viruses, and contamination.
Air Purification Units
- IQ Air Health Pro Series and Medify MA-112 medical grade H13 True HEPA Filtration Air Purification units will be placed in every treatment room and throughout the office. Both of these air purifiers can remove 99.97% of particles down to 0.1 microns and can clean the air in a room up to four times per hour. Additionally, the IQ Air Health Pro Series effectively filters 99.5% of harmful ultrafine particles down to 0.003 microns in size (the COVID-19 virus is 0.125 microns in size).
Upgraded Flooring
- Replacement of carpeting throughout the office and treatment rooms with easily cleanable vinyl plank flooring. This will allow us to sanitize the flooring effectively and frequently throughout the day.
ADDITIONAL DENTAL TREATMENT PROCEDURES
- Patients will be asked to rinse with a 1.5% Hydrogen Peroxide oral rinse (Colgate Peroxyl) in order to reduce the salivary load of oral microbes, including potentially COVID-19. Reduction of microbes present in a patients’ mouth reduces the number of potential microbes emitted into the air.
Dental Dam Isolation
- A dental dam is a rubber sheet that is stretched around the treated tooth/teeth, isolating the treatment zone from saliva. This allows a significant reduction in bacterial/infectious aerosols that could be inhaled during a procedure. We will routinely use dental dam isolation during dental procedures to add an additional layer of safety during your visit.
Limitation of countertop items or displays
- We will leave only necessary items for each patient appointment on the treatment room countertops to reduce the number of items that could potentially be contaminated by aerosols.
Practice of Standard Precautions
These precautions include:
- Steam autoclave instruments. All reusable instruments are steam sterilized in individual bags that are not opened until ready for use for each patient.
- Disposable single use instruments and other items used as often as possible
- Use of barrier on touchable surfaces in the dental treatment room provides an additional layer of infection control
- All non-covered surfaces in the treatment room receive OSHA compliant disinfection with an EPA registered broad spectrum disinfectant that has a one-minute viricidal contact time to COVID-19 and SARS CoV and MERS CoV.
