COVID-19 Response – 16 Practical Steps Your Dental Practice can Take Now
- Utilize cell phone triage – Have the patient use the cell phone to take a picture of the area and text to the dentist/dental team member. If it is an existing patient – you can determine the need for next steps. If it is a new patient – you will be limited on what you can do for next steps.
- Have a detailed questionnaire/conversation before scheduling appointments and prior to any procedure about flu-like symptoms, travel abroad for self and family/friends/co-workers, etc. to permit a thorough evaluation of the patient. Here are some sample questions below:
- Have you recently traveled to an area with known local spread of COVID-19?
- Yes / No
- Have you had close contact (within 6 feet) with someone who has a laboratory confirmed COVID – 19 diagnosis in the past 14 days?
- Yes / No
- Do you have a fever (greater than 100.4 F or 38.0 C) OR symptoms of lower respiratory illness such as cough, shortness of breath, or difficulty breathing?
- Yes / No
- Do you have a fever (greater than 100.4 F or 38.0 C) OR symptoms of lower respiratory illness such as cough, shortness of breath, or difficulty breathing?
- Yes / No
- Do you have a fever (greater than 100.4 F or 38.0 C) OR symptoms of lower respiratory illness such as cough, shortness of breath, or difficulty breathing?
- Yes / No
- Do you have an immunocompromised condition due to a systemic disease, treatment of cancer or other illness/condition, advanced age (65 or older), etc?
- Yes / No
- Consider taking the temperature of the patient as they arrive to the office.
- Reconsider scheduling high-risk patients unless they need emergency treatment.
- Evaluate carefully the need for scheduling of ASA 2 & 3 patients
- Use of 1% hydrogen peroxide rinse prior to beginning of an appointment of any type by the patient to reduce microbial load in the oral cavity.
- Use of rubber dam isolation or Isodry/Isolite and high-volume suction to limit aerosol in treatment procedures.
- Proper disinfection protocol between patients with a possible repeat of the protocol for a 2nd time.
- Generate signs for all exit/entry doors. If you are making a delivery – have them call and leave at the door. Give explanation on limitation of people in the office and direction on what they should do. (To prevent over-crowding of waiting areas for the possible spread of infection)
- Consider having patients wait in their cars instead of the waiting areas to prevent inadvertent spread of the virus (call patient when treatment room is ready for them).
- Consider staggering appointment times to reduce reception room exposure.
- Consider rescheduling elective procedures on ASA 2 & 3 patients
- Have business team take measures to prevent exposure.
- Set a timer for every 2 hours – wipe down all door knobs and other surfaces that get high use.
- Have sterilization team, lab technicians and auxiliary team take adequate measures to prevent exposure.
- Limit access to reception room use to only patients. Accompanying individuals must wait in their respective transportation.
- Remove all unnecessary items in the reception area – all magazines/toys/brochures/clip boards/cups of pens/etc. from reception area to prevent contamination.
- Consider setting up a table outside the entry door with hand sanitizer and Kleenex with a sign asking them to use the hand sanitizer to wash hands for at least 20 seconds and then use the Kleenex to open the doors.
