Great news — our office has reopened!
On Friday, May 22nd, 2020 Governor Scott announced that dental offices could resume patient care effective June 1st, 2020. We are VERY excited to see our patients again! While many things have changed, one thing remains the same: our commitment to patient care and safety. Our staff has spent their time productively preparing for our reopening. We want to take this time now to let you know what we have done in the office and how things will be changing for both patients and staff as we start to try and return to what our new “normal” will be.
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.
Firstly, you will see some changes when it is time for your next appointment. We made these changes to help protect our patients and staff. For example:
- Our office will communicate with you before your appointment to ask some screening questions. You will be asked those same questions again when you arrive at the office for your appointment.
- We have hand sanitizer stations and will ask you to sanitize when you enter the office. You will find sanitizer in the reception area and other places in the office for you to use as needed.
- You may see that our waiting room no longer offers magazines or children’s toys, since those items are difficult to clean and disinfect.
- Appointments will be managed to allow for social distancing between patients.
- We will do our best to allow for greater time between patients to reduce waiting times for you, as well as to reduce the number of patients in the office at any given time.
When arriving for a scheduled appointment, we ask the following of our patients:
- When you arrive at the office, please remain in your car and call the office at 879-7811 to announce your arrival.
- We will notify you when our staff has finished preparing for your visit.
- When you enter the building, it is mandatory that you wear a face covering or mask at all times. If you do not have a face covering/ mask, you must notify our staff via phone when you call to check in so one may be provided for you.
- Upon entering, you will be provided hand sanitizer and your clinician will then bring you directly back to your treatment room.
- Please keep your face covering or mask on until directed by your clinician to remove it.
Other practices put into place include, but are not limited to:
- All treatment rooms will be completely sterilized before each patient is seated. While this has always been a standard, our sterilization procedure itself has been amplified. It has also been applied to common areas in the office that will be sterilized frequently throughout the day, such as the waiting room and bathrooms.
- All treatment rooms have high volume suction and air filtration. Air is purified with the help of separate ultra-violet light systems; this system is capable of purifying the entire office air supply many times each day, providing an air quality similar to hospital operating rooms.
- During patient care, Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) such as masks, face shields, gowns and other PPE will be worn for the safety of both patients and staff.
We want our patients to know that we are thrilled to get back to work, but we are also proceeding with an abundance of caution. We want you to feel as confident as we do that any visit to our office will be a safe one for all involved!
We hope you are as excited to see us as we are to see you!
Respectfully Yours,
Dr. Scott Thompson, Dr. Sara Trottier & Staff