Greetings to our Dental Family,
We hope this letter finds you and your family in good health. 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. As we still await the appropriate personal protective equipment our proposed soft start date is June 1st.
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. We want to tell you about the infection control procedures we follow in our practice to keep patients and staff safe.
Our office follows infection control recommendations made by the American Dental Association (ADA), the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA). 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 it is time for your next appointment. We made these changes to help protect our patients and staff. In order to keep you up to date, we would like to share with you the measures that we are taking to maintain a safe and healthy environment for our team and our patients. For example:
- Our office will communicate with you beforehand to ask some screening questions. You’ll be asked those same questions again when you are in the office.
- We have hand sanitizer that we will ask you to use when you enter the office. You will also find some in the reception area and other places in the office for you to use as needed.
- You may see that our waiting room will no longer offer magazines, children’s toys and so forth, since those items are difficult to clean and disinfect.
- Appointments will be managed to allow for social distancing between patients. That might mean that you’re offered fewer options for scheduling your appointment.
- We will do our best to allow greater time between patients to reduce waiting times for you, as well as to reduce the number of patients in the reception area at any one time.
- A virtual waiting room will be maintained. Patients will be asked to remain in their vehicle and text or call upon arrival. We will acknowledge and text or call you when our team is ready for you to enter the office.
- Temperatures will be taken upon entering the office on both team members (daily) and patients (prior to appointment time)
- We will have a COVID screening form for all patients to fill out prior to being seen.
- We would prefer only patients be in the treatment area. The exceptions to this rule will be children and adults with assistance requirements. In these instances, only one adult will be allowed back with the patient.
- We will have an office steward responsible for monitoring and controlling patient traffic beyond the treatment room which will include only one patient checking in or out at the same time.
- We will maintain the appropriate PPE (personal protective equipment) that is consistent with the guidelines of the ADA and CDC.
We look forward to seeing you again and are happy to answer any questions you may have about the steps we take to keep you, and every patient, safe in our practice. We have been creating a list of patients with urgent dental needs during the crisis. If you have not contacted us yet and feel that you have a dental necessity, please call our office to discuss making an appointment.
Please be patient with us. This is not only a learning process, but a dynamic process that will be subject to amendment. The governing bodies can alter our course at any time, and we will keep you informed of any changes. We promise that we will get you in as soon as possible.
Thank you for being our patient. We value your trust and loyalty and look forward to welcoming back our patients, neighbors and friends.
Sincerely,
Drs. Morris, Klein and the team at Sarah J. Morris DDS PLLC