A Message from Dr. Nelson on COVID-19
5/30/2020
Our community has been through a lot over the last few months, and all of us are looking forward to resuming our normal habits and routines. While many things have changed, one thing has remained the same: our commitment to your safety.
Infection control has always been a top priority for our practice and you may have seen this during your visits to our office. Our infection control processes are made so that when you receive care, it’s both safe and comfortable.
Dental practices have always taken infection control very seriously, and we find it particularly reassuring that the CDC wrote as recently as May 19th “no clusters have yet been reported in dental settings.”
We want to tell you about the infection control procedures we follow in our practice to keep patients and staff safe. Our office meets or exceeds infection control recommendations made by the California Dental Association (CDA), the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), and the Santa Clara County Public Health department. We follow the activities of these agencies so that we are up-to-date on any new rulings or guidance that may be issued. We do this to make sure that our infection control procedures are current and adhere to each agencies’ recommendations.
You may see some changes when you come to our office. We made these changes to help protect our patients and staff. Some of these changes are:
All staff are wearing masks at all times, and we ask that you bring your face covering to the office and wear it when we are not working in your mouth.
There are only two chairs in our lobby to help with social distancing.
There are plexiglass barriers in the business area.
Extraoral suction and air filtration to reduce aerosols that can occur during dental treatment. Our system has a flexible arm to suction right from the source and keeps everybody safe. Our system is the IQAir Health Pro Plus from Switzerland, which was used in hospitals during the SARS outbreak in 2003. IQAir's HyperHEPA filtration is tested and certified by an independent third-party lab to effectively filter 99.5% of harmful ultrafine pollution particles down to 0.003 microns in size. This is at least 20 times smaller than the novel coronavirus!
Disinfectant fogger to clean the air after each patient treatment. This is using HOCl (hypochlorous acid), which is an EPA-approved disinfectant effective against the coronavirus. HOCl is safe and effective! It is used as non-rinse disinfectant on fruits and vegetables, and it is actually made by our own immune system.
Full Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) for staff, used per CDC guidelines. Most notably, we will be wearing more face shields.
As usual:
Treatment rooms are disinfected per CDA/CDC protocols after every patient, as we’ve always done.
Disposable plastic barriers on chairs, light handles, trays and other commonly touched items.
Frequent disinfection of “high touch” areas, such as furniture, door handles, counter tops, pens and clipboards.
On your appointment day:
Anyone entering the office must wear a face covering, and go through a screening process.
Please maintain social distancing of six feet in the lobby.
After your appointment, please put your face covering back on.
Sincerely,
Dr. Daniel Nelson