ON May 21, the American Dental Association (ADA) issued more detailed guidance on how to resume dental practices safely.
It offers insight that could well be valuable to Filipino dentists as well. We have written about some of them before but we cannot overemphasize the matter.
The ADA, America’s largest dentist organization, was actually one of the first professional health associations in the United States to recommend on March 16 the postponement of all but urgent or emergency dental procedures.
It was intended to help mitigate the spread of the pandemic, to conserve Personal Protective Equipment or PPE for medical front liners. The idea was also to avoid the need for patients requiring emergency dental treatment to go to overburdened hospital emergency departments.
The ADA’s March 16 recommended limitation on practice expired on April 30 and was not extended.
The US Federal Emergency Management Agency has since elevated dentistry on its PPE priority list.
The new ADA Return to Work Interim Guidance Toolkit builds upon the already strong infection control protocols in place in dental offices and calls for the use of the highest level of PPEs such as masks, goggles and face shield.
The “new normal” calls for new ways. The dentist and the dental team may now be using different PPEs for every patient appointment.
And don’t be annoyed when for every dental appointment the dental staff may call patients and ask questions about their current health status. They may repeat these questions when patients arrive to make sure nothing has changed.
Patients may have their temperature taken prior to any procedure. Patients may be asked to bring and wear their own masks upon arrival at the dental office.
Patients may be asked to limit the number of people they bring to the appointment.
During dental appointments patients may be asked to wait outside until the dental team is ready to see them. Inside the office, newspapers and magazines are no longer there because these are easily contaminated by constant touching.
The clinic may have hand sanitizers for patients to use. The dental staff may wipe down the items that patients touch, including pens and furniture. The computer keyboard may have a disposable cover so it can be cleaned between patients.
After dental appointments, the staff will thoroughly clean the areas where patients have been, using disinfectants that are effective against the virus that causes COVID-19.
The interim guidance also includes ways to reduce aerosols. These include hand scaling when cleaning teeth rather than using an ultrasonic scaling device that spay a long of airborne droplets around; using high velocity suction whenever possible; and using rubber dental dams that cover the mouth whenever appropriate./PN
