The aerosols (Part 17)
A message from Dr. Ziv Simon
April 8, 2020
Hello my friend,
Today I spent the whole day imagining the future of dentistry.
In the AC (After Corona) era.
I walked through the whole process of patient care in my mind.
From the moment the patient checks in, through the procedure and all the way to the check out.
Next, I'm going to put this in a Google doc and start developing the many new concepts that came from this mind exercise.
You'll be getting the first sneak peak when I have something to show for. It won't take months.
We don't have the time.
Our practices will hopefully open in the next 2-3 months. If you don't start creating protocols and systems, get your team educated and ready to implement in 2-3 months then you just got yourself a crisis in itself.
The time to start is today.
I actually plan to have my team come in about 1 week before open date, to rehearse and familiarize themselves with the practice AC.
So first I built this vision in my mind, next comes the blueprint, then the testing and then the implementation.
Thoughts become ideas that turn into plans and in capable hands like yours can become actions that bring results.
So don't freeze on me here. We need to make some plans.
Here are the 12 key areas I was envisioning today:
- Patient communication before the appointment (Phone/text/email)
- Patient check in
- Waiting room set up and procedures
- New office divisions/dividers
- Collection (before/during appointment)
- Clinical appointment (hygiene/surgery/exams)
- PO instructions
- Check out
- Incoming mail and packages (including lab work)
- Room turnaround
- Standard PPE (Front/RDH/Doctor/assistants)
- Charts
How will all these areas be different in the AC era?
There was one word that couldn't leave my mind - AEROSOLS
These are the suspensions of particles in the air. This is what we learn to do the first time we use a high speed.
We are aerosolizing all the time. In restorative, endo, surgery and even ortho. Any time you use a handpieace.
These aerosols carry COVID-19 and stay in the air for 3 hours. We are the ones making it airborne.
Do you want to have a 3 hour break between patients?
Do you want to see 2 patients a day?
I didn't think so.
We must find a solution for that and there is one or more.
I'm contemplating this with my partner, Ari. We are trying to figure out what can we do to mitigate the risks of aerosols in Corona infection.
Chime in. Help us out.
Let me know what you think. I would love this process to be a collaborative effort of the 30,000 dentists in our community.
My Google doc is open and I'm writing notes. My promise to you is that I will make it open-source. Every dentist will have access to it because we are all in it together.
Dentistry is not going away. We've come a long way from amalgam, silver points and performing surgery without gloves in the 70's.
Dentists are some of the most innovative professionals in the world. We always come up with simple solutions and know how to make things work.
What we must create now are solutions to the challenges this outbreak imposed on us.
Let's do this together.
Stay strong!
Ziv.