Dear Bridges Dental Family:

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I hope you and your families are doing well during this trying time. This has been an ever-changing global experience profoundly affecting us all psychologically, emotionally, and financially. I know you’ve been inundated with emails from every retail or online business you’ve interacted with in the past decade, so I wanted any communication from my office to be appropriately closer to resuming some semblance of normalcy again as your dental practice. 

 

I have been spending much of this shelter-in-place in various dental webinars provided by the California Dental Association, American Dental Association, and Occupational Safety and Health Administration. I have also been closely monitoring and cross-referencing that information with the latest safety measures recommended by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention as well as the National Institutes of Health. In addition, some of you may know that my sister is a critical care pulmonologist in Seattle and has been on the front lines since February. She has been balancing her normal job of managing patients with all forms of advanced lung diseases with rotations in her hospital. She and I have been in constant communication throughout this and she has been an invaluable resource to me, my family, and friends. In our chosen career paths, universal precautions and infection control is second nature to our way of life, however that has obviously become amplified right now. While I assure you of your safety behind the scenes, some important specifics that will affect your appointments in terms of scheduling are as follows: 

 

• In lieu of our normal text reminders for your appointments, we will now be calling you to have a phone conversation prior to your visit to discuss your health, travel, personal precautions, and interactions leading up to your appointment. I understand this may sound overwhelming, but we will try to keep it brief and systematic. Please be honest with your answers as this screening will affect the health and safety of me and my staff as well as that of all patients coming in after you. 

• We respectfully ask that you arrive with a face mask as you are hopefully using that precaution with all social encounters right now already.

• We will be minimizing the need for you to touch surfaces during your visit. This will include us propping the door open to avoid you having to touch a doorknob. We will be using a contactless forehead thermometer upon your arrival and then ask that you clean your hands with our anti-bacterial and anti-viral healthcare hand sanitizer that will be available in the front area and in all of our treatment rooms. For the time being, we will also be removing magazines from the waiting area.

• We have added localized HEPA filters with UV-C light technology in each room. 360 Post Street management has also updated our HEPA filtration within the HVAC of the building. 

• During both your dental procedures with me and your hygiene visits with Claire, rest assured that our enhanced safety precautions of personal protective equipment, disinfection, and sterilization protocol will be in place. We will also both be using high speed evacuation devices to protect us and subsequent patients.

• You can arrange payment prior to your appointment with Desi over the phone as you’re going over your screening questions and confirming your appointment to avoid hand transfer of a credit card.

• We will also be fogging the office with electrolyzed water intermittently to further help keep our office air fresh. This safe, breathable technology is proven effective against many known viruses and is a comforting extra step to me and my staff.

• It has always been my intention to have your dental experience as comfortable and private as possible. We schedule one-on-one attention with you and I don’t see multiple patients simultaneously like many dental offices. We ask you to be cognizant of your reserved time and arrive on time. To ensure the safe turnaround of our dental rooms and sterilization process in the back office, this very carefully orchestrated time management is more critical than ever. Your respectfulness of our protocol and those patients after you with an on-time arrival given the extra steps necessary will be very much appreciated.

 

We sure hope that these safety precautions can be lightened as soon as possible. These proactive measures may not be a welcomed or sustainable way of living, but for the foreseeable future this is going to have to be our new norm. We thank you in advance for your consideration and understanding. We wish you and your families and loved ones good health, hope, and optimism right now. Your dental team and I can’t wait to see you soon and get back to a new daily routine as your dental care providers. This has been a surreal time, but let’s work together in making this new normal in your dental office a great and harmonious one!

 

Very sincerely yours,

Thomas Bridges, DDS