With the continuing COVID-19 pandemic, dental offices need to use special precautions to keep dentists, employees, and patients safe. By following the recommendations from the CDC and the ADA, Finn Hill Dental of Poulsbo tries to protect everyone who enters the office.
Impact of Covid-19 on the Dental Industry
At the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, dental offices suffered from mandatory closings. Patients missed their regular checkups and cleanings. Many chose to cancel or postpone elective procedures and many continue to avoid regular dental appointments.
With dentist offices closed for several months at the start of the pandemic, employees left to find new jobs. Now that dental offices are open for business, some are struggling to fill appointments because they cannot find enough hygienists to help patients. However, at your dentist in Poulsbo, we are ready to clean a patient's teeth and provide necessary dental care.
If you are wondering will dental offices close due to the Coronavirus again, we are working hard to stay open by using enhanced cleaning procedures and safety protocols. Our goal is to continue providing safe dental services so patients can maintain their dental health by seeing their dentist during COVID-19.
Is the Dentist’s Office Safe?
As scientists learn more about the dangers of the COVID-19 virus, patients wonder if going to the dentist during COVID is safe. The answer is yes. Our team of dentists in Poulsbo, WA is taking great care to make the office safe for their patients and employees.
We follow the directives from the CDC and the ADA. Both organizations require screening for patients and employees. To maintain safety in our office, we take temperature checks when patients arrive; we also take employee temperatures when they arrive in the office each day. If any of our employees or patients have a temperature, we ask them to stay home.
Management of Patients
To keep our patients safe, we do not allow anyone to wait in the waiting room. We ask that you check in and wait in your car. We will alert you when it is time for your appointment and we ask that you wear a face mask over your nose and mouth when you enter the office.
Before making an appointment, we ask you about your dental needs. In some instances, our dentist can arrange a telehealth appointment to determine if you need to be seen in the office. Doing so reduces potential exposure by limiting the number of patients who enter the office.
Ensuring Patient and Staff Safety
Our goal is to continue practicing dentistry while keeping our patients and staff safe in the office. Because our hygienists use tools that can create aerosol, you might notice that we are doing some dental procedures differently. We’ve put away the tools that can cause safety issues for our hygienists, but you can trust that we are still cleaning your teeth in a way that meets our standards. The CDC recommends that we use rubber dams to prevent aerosols from spreading.
Our hygienists and the dentist in Poulsbo have always worn personal protective equipment during procedures, but we are wearing our PPE a bit differently. Along with masks and eye protection, face shields are worn to prevent virus exposure. For patient protection, we ask them to wear a mask over their nose and mouth until their procedure begins. We also recommend wearing eye protection.
Dental Office Cleaning
To prevent the spread from touching surfaces, we take great care to clean each exam room between patients. During appointments, we are using high-speed evacuation tools to remove aerosols. Between each patient, we also autoclave all tools to remove bacteria and viruses.
We also regularly clean and disinfect our public areas and our exam rooms. We disinfect the door handles, exam chairs, and other areas that patients use. Also, we have removed all of our toys, books, and magazines from the waiting area.
We are working hard to keep Finn Hill Dental in Poulsbo safe so patients can keep their mouths healthy during the pandemic. We thank all of our patients for helping us keep the office safe by wearing their face masks and alerting us if they have been exposed to COVID-19 before their appointment.