SAN ANTONIO – Origins Dentistry is a new dentist office that was built in the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic.
And any small business knows the difficulty of starting up, but starting in the current economic climate adds more obstacles, so Origins Dentistry had to adapt.
“Everything is different and dentistry is no exception,” Dr. Babak Najafi, periodontist at Origins Dentistry said.
There are the obvious COVID safety protocols in place such as temperature checks and social distancing, but there is so much more. One way the dentists there are making sure all of their patients and staff members stay safe is through the use of a negative pressure room.
“We were all concerned with the patient’s safety, so we started following the ADA and CDC guidelines when we opened up a couple of months ago with screening, as well as specific infection control procedures, protocol and screening of our own team members. And more important than anything else, ensuring social distancing between the patients. It’s seeing one patient at a time to make sure that our patients and our own team members are safe,” Dr. Babak Najafi, periodontist at Origins Dentistry said.
The office was in mid-construction when the pandemic hit, so a pressure room was specially built to essentially vacuum out germs and bacteria.
The room gets sealed off preventing the spread of any possibly harmful aerosols, and 12 times per hour the air is vacuumed to the outside.
“We went above and beyond the guidelines by incorporating a negative pressure room, which is an airborne infection isolation room inside an office, which is technically a hospital grade facility, " Najafi said. “With this pandemic, it’s really important to make sure that with aerosols and any droplets, make sure our dental procedures can be done safely and patients don’t delay their dental treatments, which can be dangerous at times.”