Garrettsville – As you have certainly noticed by now, Responsible RestartOhio — The state’s plan to restart Ohio’s economy during the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic — looks much different than returning to ‘normal.’ Our concept of standard operations is being reshaped according to the demands of an infectious disease. Instead of Walk-Ins Welcome, we have No Mask – No Service. It’s the new way to be neighborly.
Anyone who has made an appointment for a haircut, medical or dental visit has been re-educated about the new safety protocols established to reduce the spread of COVID-19. In the case of Garrettsville Dental Group, small-town tradition was quickly supplanted by safety-first requirements.
The family dentist’s office at 8143 Windham Street has been in operation for around 50 years; most recently by Andrew Holpuch, DDS, who took over the practice from his uncle in 2015. Dr. Holpuch’s top priority has always been the health and safety of his patients. To him, it was clear that strict guidelines were the only way he could reopen after his office was completely closed from March 15-April 19.
“The first week we closed down, I reviewed what I needed to do to give us peace of mind when we did reopen,” he said. After partially reopening for emergency appointments for two weeks, he fully reopened on May 4, according to these new conditions:
1) The waiting room is closed. Patients must wait in their car until called to come into the office. No family or friends should accompany the patient unless they are a guardian or caregiver.
2) Patients are asked to wear a mask to their appointment. (It gets removed for treatment.) It’s also recommended that patients wear a sweater, as the office temperature is now kept cooler due to the staff’s additional PPE layers.
3) Patients will undergo a COVID-19 screening questionnaire and temperature/Pulse-Ox readings prior to their appointment. Then they rinse their mouth with a hydrogen peroxide oral solution.
4) Appointment times are being extended and staggered to limit patient interactions and to provide additional time for room disinfection.
In addition to their stringent surface disinfection standards, Garrettsville Dental Group has installed medical-grade air filtration units from Surgically Clean Air for each treatment room, which filter and disinfect the air every two to three minutes.
While none of these measures feel comfortable or convenient, Dr. Holpuch sees them as necessary to protect staff and patients alike. Further, “All of the extra PPE and newly installed doors on each room make for long days but everybody’s getting used to it,” he says. “The patients are okay with it all. It doesn’t matter if they believe in wearing masks or not; we need to err on the side of caution to protect everyone.”
Considering that society will likely need to contend with this virus for the balance of the year, Dr. Holpuch says that we need to adjust to a form of personalized care that looks very different from what we’re accustomed to.
Even as the coronavirus continues, so does progress. Dr. Holpuch has a new office under construction that will allow him more space and new technologies to better serve his patients. Located within view of his current office off Freedom Street by the public parking lot near the Eagle Creek boardwalk, this new office should be ready to open by mid-July.
Building in the midst of a pandemic provided him a unique opportunity to build a safer office for everyone, he says. He will now isolate and enclose each treatment room and is installing Surgically Clean Air medical-grade air purification systems in each treatment room and main hallway, each with a six-stage filtration and sterilization process that will filter and disinfect the air every three minutes.
Just a month into the reopening, Dr. Holpuch says that his patients seem eager to get back into the dentist’s (and hygienist’s) chair. “We’re booked out further than we’ve ever been,” he noted.
“These are different times but we are committed to the continued oral and general health of Garrettsville and its neighboring communities,” says Dr. Holpuch. “We still have a lot to learn about the reality that we’re in but any way you cut it, we’re doing a good job in our office in terms of controlling infection.”
The dentist is here to remind us that new safety protocols may be a hard pill to swallow but they’re for the greater good.
