Patient Protocol for Dental Appointment
When you come to Integrative Dentistry for an appointment, you will notice a few things are different from your last dental experience. When you enter, use the hand wipes on the stand and throw away into the covered trash can. You may sit in the waiting room or go out on the deck and sit in the chair until we are ready.
You will be asked to come back to the treatment room, a bib will be placed and then you will be asked to rinse with a solution of Peroxide 3% and an Iodine product. Rinse for 10-20 seconds and then spit back out in the cup. This is a combination that has been shown to be effective against Rhinovirus and Coronavirus. Don’t worry it’s totally natural with no additives, chemicals or alcohol. It doesn’t smell or stain and has a minty taste.
Dr O and his assistant Patty have a new protocol to follow as well. After Dr O greets you, he will excuse himself to go wash his hands and then put on a surgical gown, his N95 mask, and his goggles and protective shield. Then he will put on his gloves in order to treat you. This is to keep everything clean and sterile.
He will then turn on both DentAirVacs, the ‘Elephant Hose’’ filters. These are high speed suction and filtration units that whisk the air from the field of the dental work and filter it. This is to prevent aerosols from escaping into the room.
After each visit, Patty double wipes all surfaces twice and flushes all lines and equipment. Then she removes all instruments, drills, etc. and thoroughly sterilizes them. We test our sterilizer for each load that we do to make sure everything is totally sterile. She also flushes all the lines and cleans the air with ozone. Patty worked in a hospital during her rotations at dental school in Mexico City, so she is very familiar with infection control.
15 minutes are left between patients so Patty has time to do all the above. During this time the door is left open allowing fresh air to come into the room. On top of this the Elephant Hoses are left on for 15 minutes. Each DentAirVac is rated to clean a room every five minutes, so by the time 15 minutes are up, each filter has dried and filtered the air at least 3 times.