EMERGENCY DENTISTRY

Dear Patients,

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.

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 in accordance with American Dental Association (ADA), the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) to keep patients and staff safe. Before you enter the examination room, all surfaces, such as the dental chair, cabinet handles & countertops have been cleaned & disinfected which hospital grade disinfectants. Some equipment will have protective covers on them which are replaced after each patient. Disposable instruments & needles are never reused. After each use, all non-disposable dental instruments receive the highest level of medical sterilization available. Before seeing each patient everyone in the treatment team washes their hands & puts on a new pair of gloves. These processes have always been of utmost importance in our office & will continue to be the standards we uphold for the community.

You may see some changes when it is time for your next appointment as well. We made these changes to help protect our patients and staff. 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.

   •  When you arrive at the office, please call to inform us that you have arrived. We ask that patients wait in their car until we are ready to see them. This will decrease patient to patient contact.

   •  We will take your temperature after you arrive to ensure no patients are seen with a fever.

   •  We have hand sanitizer that we will ask you to use when you enter the office.

   •  You may see that our waiting room will no longer offer magazines, coffee bar, children’s toys and so forth, since those items are difficult to clean and disinfect.

   •  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.

   •  We are also asking patients to not bring additional people with them to their appointment such as significant others or children unless they are also being seen that day.

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.

Thank you for being our patient. We value your trust and loyalty and look forward to welcoming back our patients, neighbors and friends.

Sincerely,

Dr. Vaughn and Team