Our Protocols For Our Office To Stay Safe From COVID-19
Pre-Covid we already had high standards of sterilizing & disinfecting using Universal Precautions which follows our governing body, the RCDSO, and Public Health guidelines.
Additional pre-cautions & protocols were created and is practised because of the new Covid-19 virus:
Screening Patients & Our Team
- We have a 3 level screening protocol for patients & our team before they come into the office.
- Screening includes taking & recording their body temperatures.
Disinfecting Protocols
- clinical disinfecting and sterilizing follows Public Health & RCDSO universal precaution guidelines
- non-clinical area/surfaces that are frequently touched are disinfected regularly throughout the day, this includes counters, doorhandles, the point of sale machine
- we have taken away magazines, coffee station, pamphlets etc to decrease possibility of cross-contamination
- the office is also disinfected & cleaned professionally after hours
- we continue to use hospital grade disinfectant solutions
Mask & Personal Disinfecting
- our team, patients and anyone else coming into the office are asked to wear masks.
- they are also asked to disinfect their hands.
- our team wears the full recommended PPE (personal protective equipment) when treating patients and change their PPE after each patient.
- PPE— recommended masks, clinical gown, scrub caps, shields, gloves, work shoes.
Clinic Reno
- for better air quality and security we installed doors/barriers for each operatory.
- we added plexiglass barriers in our reception area to decrease aerosol travel.
- we have removed our hand dryers in the washrooms to decrease unnecessary air flow.
- we have removed our reception chairs to discourage too many people gathering.
Social Distancing & New Virtual Waiting Room Software
- social distancing of our patients is enforced.
- we control the amount of people that are in our waiting areas.
- we use a virtual waiting room software, which allows our patients to stay in their car and wait for their appointment instead of physically waiting in our reception area.
- we provided floor decals throughout the office indicating what 6 feet distance would be to help anyone coming into the office social distance.
Air Quality
- all of our operatories are HVAC certified.
- each of the operatories as well as the reception area have hospital-grade Air Exchange units.
- air exchangers vacuums aerosols (containing bacteria/viruses), processes them through multiple filters (including charcoal & hepa filters) and expels the clean filtered new air into the room.
- we use the hospital grade Austin Air Exchangers because it changes air every 5 minutes.
- we also have an external HVAC suction unit that also filters air.
Team Training
- our team is trained to practice our office protocols which have been designed & implemented to provide a safe environment for our patients coming in for dental treatment.