Observations from my first week back ?


Although next week is our first official week back, last week we scheduled some patients on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. Monday was spent training and rearranging the office. We familiarized ourselves with a bunch of PPE obtained over the break for various sources and figured out what we would use in different situations. We received two hundred Chinese disposable face shields, some Valuemax disposable coats, various types of level three surgical masks and three boxes of N95 masks.

I had purchased a bag full of paper sandwich bags that I plan to store N 95 masks after being used for one day. The bags will be labelled with the name of the user and the day that it was used. After a week of rest, it will be deemed safe to reuse if needed ( If no additional n-95's are available).

We positioned various air purifiers around the office, got most of the supplies that my assistant and hygienist store on the counters in their operatories and placed them on mobile cabinets immediately outside their treatment rooms. and we were more or less ready to go. 

We saw one patient on Tuesday, four on Wednesday and another two on Thursday. My hygienist and I cleaned teeth, took radiographs and did examinations.  I also did a filling, inserted two permanent crowns and started an emergency root canal. At first it was pretty strange . I work with loupes and a light that sometimes needs adjusting during a procedure, in order to aim the light better. This isn't that feasible if its crammed inside a face shield. Some face shields allow mounting the light on the outside of the headband, but those haven't shipped to my office yet ( they seem to be on a very "slow boat" from California. 

Things got easier as the week went along and by Thursday I was more or less used to my new "normal". During this "shakedown cruise" we adjusted our prescreening and greeting protocols with our patients. Towards the end of the week we had instituted some protocols that worked reasonably well. At first I asked my front desk person to call the patients and interview with a prescreening health questionnaire. Many dentists are using online forms to accomplish this, but we are using G6 Dentrix which doesn't easily accommodate these, so we did verbal interviews and directed them to a letter I posted on my website that went over how we were restarting our practice. This letter covered what would happen when they arrived and was intended explain what would happen when they arrived a the office. We also taped a Welcome back letter on the outside of our front door.

It turned out that our patients weren't really reading the letter and were entering the office and taking off their masks ( a big no-no) and this was stressing me out, since I or a staff member had to coerce them to put their masks back on until they were seated in the operatory. 

By Thursday I came up with a better solution. I had my front desk administer call each patient up before their appointment and detail what would happen when they came into the office. I also locked the front door and changed the note that was tapped outside. Now it instructed the patients that they should keep their mask on and ring the front bell. A staff member would take their temperature and escort them to the treatment room . This worked much better, since this afforded us better control of where the patients went and who they talked to.

I did notice a positive development of our three month shut down. Patients were more pro active about requesting treatment. If they came in for a filling they asked if they could also have a cleaning as well. Given the uncertainty of our times they saw no need for extra visits and often commented that who knew when they would be able to get back for additional treatment. It was sort of like going to the supermarket and buying all the toilet paper or meat that you could find...just in case. 

We were usually able to accommodate their requests since we scheduled an hour gap time between appointments and multiple procedures were easily accomplished. If this attitude persists it will be a positive developments for most dentists, since prior to March 2020 many were not in a hurry to do additional treatments after they finished a procedure. They would frequently comment" That's OK Doc, I'll make an appointment for that later, after I can check my schedule".






from Ask Dr. Spindel - http://lspindelnycdds.blogspot.com/2020/06/observations-from-my-first-week-back.html - http://lspindelnycdds.blogspot.com/

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