WELCOME, WE ARE EXCITED TO SEE YOU!

We hope this greeting finds you and your family in good health. Our communities have been through a lot over the last few months, and all of us are looking forward to resuming more normal habits and routines. While many things have changed, one thing has remained the same: our office’s commitment to your safety.

 Infection control has always been a top priority for our practice as you may have seen during previous visits.  We have always taken pride in our high infection control standards and have now implemented even more measures to keep our patients and team members safe while in the office.  Our office follows and has been trained on the latest infection control procedures and recommendations of the American Dental Association (ADA), the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA). This allows us to make sure that our infection control procedures are up-to-date and enables us to provide the safest environment for our patients and their family members.

We ask that you please be patient and understand that we will do our best to accommodate your scheduling needs as we know many of you are anxious to get back into our office. During this time, we have implemented additional safety precautions to help protect our patients and staff. The following is a list of some new safety measures we have established.

1. We are transitioning to a more “paperless” office in an attempt to prevent possible cross contamination from traditional “hard” (paper based) charts. This means you  will be asked to review and complete our all new electronic forms (Health history, consent form, etc) online before your appointment. The link to these forms is supplied through our website and text messages.
2. Upon arriving for an appointment, you will be given a COVID-19 questionnaire to complete. This questionnaire must be completed before your appointment and seating in the office. We will postpone treatment for any patient who has experienced or been in contact with someone who has experienced the following symptoms within 14 days of the scheduled appointment date: fever, cough, loss of taste and/or smell, flu-like symptoms, difficulty breathing or shortness of breath, and fatigue.
3. Doctor and his staff take a COVID assessment (written questionnaire, temperature and blood oxygen level) every day. We are periodically tested for the corona virus and have had no positive results from in-office antibody testing. 
4. We will be scheduling appointments in a manner that promotes social distancing and allows adequate time for us to disinfect all areas of use in between patient appointments. Upon arrival at our office, please call us before entering the office to let us know you have arrived (if the phone lines are occupied and the reception area is clear you may stick your head in to let us know you’re here). We will call or text you once the office is ready for you to enter.
5. We ask that patients enter the office unaccompanied, if possible. For those patients who need a guardian to accompany them, we ask that this be limited to a single family member. Every person entering the office is expected to wear a face covering and will be asked to sanitize their hands immediately upon entry. Touchless gel hand sanitizer dispenser is on the left just inside the front door.
6. Please take your temperature the morning of your appointment. We will confirm no fever (temperature over 100.4 degrees) with a contactless thermometer upon your arrival.
7. Our waiting room will no longer offer magazines, charging stations, children’s toys, and so forth, since these items are difficult to clean and disinfect. Please bring your personal wireless electronic device… we have free Wi-Fi!
8. Clear plastic screens (sneeze guards) have been installed at the front desk to minimize exposure to airborne pathogens. Medical-grade high efficiency particulate (HEPA) air purifiers have been installed throughout the operatories and office to filter all air 4-6 times an hour to improve the air quality for all patients, family members, and staff.
9. A patient oral pre-rinse will be used to minimize contaminated aerosols.
10. New Extraoral suction/filtration devices chairside are designed to isolate bacteria at the source, filter (4 filters) and then sanitize (UV emitters) aerosols generated during procedures.
11. A new central air conditioning unit with an “air scrubber” has been installed. The air scrubber uses an ActivePure technology developed by the AES company with NASA for the international space station.
12. We have installed medical grade antibacterial isolation curtains in all our operatories to improve isolation, filtration and sanitization.
13.  We “Fog” between every patient in every operatory! Delivering an additional layer of protection, a fine (4-10 micron) mist is sprayed throughout the room allowing disinfection of the air and hard to reach surfaces. The entire office and ALL surfaces are “fogged” at the end of every day.
14.  Our fogging disinfectant is food grade and FDA approved for use on vegetables! We couldn’t find anything more effective and safer. Made on the premises from water, salt, vinegar and electricity the active ingredient is neutralized so quickly it is used for eye and wound disinfection.
15.  Our surface disinfectant kills in less than a minutebut remains designed to not harm people or the environment.
16. Our doctor and staff will be wearing new personal protective equipment based on recommendations by the CDC, ADA and OSHA.

We know this may all seem overwhelming at first. It certainly took us months to bring it all together and we were “a little overwhelmed” at the task. But we’re very happy with the environment we’ve created for you and our team. And if you’re leaving your house, we’re pretty sure it’s safer here than anywhere you could go. Please feel welcome to call with any questions or concerns, 805-461-3422.

Thank you for being part of our dental family. We value your trust and loyalty and are excited to welcome back our patients, neighbors, and friends.

Sincerely,

Dr Farr and the entire Team