Patient Safety

Patient Safety - Plymouth, MN

Dental Patient Safety during Visits to Smile Design Dentistry

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Our Commitment to Leadership in Dental Office Safety

We have ramped up our infection control procedures for the safety of our patients, staff, and team members during your dental visits. Complete oral health and overall health is our goal for each and every patient. We continually evaluate possible gaps in the continuity of dental care and progress in patient safety; we find solutions. We want proper oral health to be attainable for everyone, which is why we partner with multiple leading insurance providers. Our entire team looks forward to helping you achieve your dream smile with affordable treatment tailored to your needs. We encourage you to read more about what you can expect at your first dental visit, then reserve your appointment with your new Plymouth, MN dentist!

Smile Design Dentistry is guided by the following organizations:

  • Center for Disease Control
  • OSHA
  • Minnesota Pollution Control
  • Minnesota Department of Health
  • Minnesota Board of Dentistry
  • Hennepin County
  • American Dental Association

What Areas of Safety Need Managing in a Dental Office?

With so many different regulatory agencies overseeing us, dental offices have to consider safety in many areas.
1

Dental Office Design and Construction:

Our clinical space, specifically our sterilization department, was designed and built with the aid of the Benco Dental Company making sure we created a safe environment for our staff and patients. We strive to maximize our offices space for efficiency and to provide the very best Plymouth, MN dental services.

2

Dental Patient Radiation Safety:

Our X-ray equipment is calibrated and monitored on a regular basis. At Smile Design, we use all digital equipment for our images which allows us to turn our machines to their lowest exposure setting. We also follow the “ALARA guidelines” which means ‘as low as reasonably achievable’ when making decisions on what images are needed to provide the best care. Our most recent purchase of a Planmeca Cone Beam Computerized Tomography (CBCT) allows us to take extremely low dose 3D images. These images provide an enormous amount of information using a very low dose of radiation.

3

Exposure Control Plan:

With the help of Leanne Mathieu Kramer LDA, CDA, CDPMA, and Compliance Solutions, Smile Design has a written safety plan, an appointed Infection Control Officer and regular training for all staff. This plan is the basis for all of our daily routines and is constantly reinforced with the staff.

4

Standard Precautions:

We have trained our staff with these CDC guidelines. Standard precautions include but are not limited to proper use of personal protective equipment, respiratory hygiene, sharps safety, safe injection practices, sterile instruments and devices, and proper cleaning and disinfecting environmental surfaces.

5

Personal Protective Equipment:

This includes proper use of gloves, masks, eye protection with side shields, face shields and scrubs. We change gloves and masks with every patient. Our scrubs have limited wear to our office and are cleaned on-site so pathogens are not brought in or out of our office.


6

Sterilization:

Between every patient visit all surfaces in the dental room are wiped down with Cavicide wipes. Our staff maintains their PPE on while all tools and equipment are put back into the sterilizable cassette. This cassette is then carried to our state of the art sterilization area where it is placed in a Hydram. This machine works like a powerful dishwasher to remove all debris from the instruments. Once they are dried, the cassettes are then wrapped in a heat resistant paper, sealed and then placed in our Midmark sterilizer and run for a full cycle to kill any germs which still might remain. These sterilized instruments then are stored in a sterile area until they are used again.


7

Hand washing:

We have trained our staff with these CDC guidelines. Standard precautions include but are not limited to proper use of personal protective equipment, respiratory hygiene, sharps safety, safe injection practices, sterile instruments and devices, and proper cleaning and disinfecting environmental surfaces.

8

Training and Monitoring:

We have trained our staff with these CDC guidelines. Standard precautions include but are not limited to proper use of personal protective equipment, respiratory hygiene, sharps safety, safe injection practices, sterile instruments and devices, and proper cleaning and disinfecting environmental surfaces.

9

Safe Patient Handling:

We have yearly meetings to update our protocols to safely assist patients in and out of our office. Additionally, we continue to assess specific risks associated with patient movement as they surface, such as in our current global pandemic.

10

Medical Emergency Protocols:

We have regular training for office management of medical emergencies. We have assigned duties for each employee in case of an incident. Our first goal is to recognize the risks and avoid a dental emergency, from ever occurring. We go over and above the recommendations by taking a blood pressure on all patients at the beginning of their appointment.

Who Oversees a Dental Office’s Safety Measures?

There are many regulatory agencies that advise dental professionals and create the safety regulations that are in place today. It is, however, up to each individual dentist to create and regulate their own protocols for their offices. At Smile Design Dentistry we have created very strict programs and protocols for the safety of both our staff and patients.
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