The pandemic effectively ground many industries to a halt but has proven it will be a gamechanger for dentistry. While dentists across Illinois and beyond are taking extra precautions by maintaining a consistently sanitary environment, they are now faced another layer of challenges to their practice’s overall anatomy.

What might have once been a simple teeth cleaning procedure where dentists could see multiple patients an hour and float between rooms will soon be the furthest thing from what it used to be.

This prolonged period of interruption gave rise to the question about the future of dentistry in the coming months and years?

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There’s no social distancing in dentistry

Dental clinics are naturally at a high risk of spreading COVID-19 because of how the virus spreads quickly from mouths and noses. When dentists use handpieces under irrigation, they have very close exposure to saliva, blood, and aerosol/droplet production. This can contaminate the environment, instruments, dental apparatuses, and surfaces if not handled carefully.

The industry has been upended, and it raises the question – do dental clinics need to change their entire layout in the wake of COVID and beyond?

North of the border has seen strict changes

The Royal College of Dental Surgeons of Ontario in Canada issued a long list of recommendations for reopening dental offices.

• Chief among them, to name a few, rooms had to be sealed off, and dentists could not float in and out like they used to.
• Dentists have to retrofit their offices with glass partitions to prevent the spread of droplets.
• Dentists have to retrofit clinics with new ventilation systems and have to be appropriately and consistently maintained.
• Clinics have to add glass partitions to prevent droplets spread and add new medical filters to purify the air.

Teledentistry is also quickly rising as the next best option for minimizing human contact. It is a new method that dentists can leverage to continue dental care for their patients to avoid social interaction and to help with issues that don’t need to be treated in person. If this will become a part of their business model, do dentists have the technical capabilities in their clinic to provide quality dental care remotely?

Guidelines from state agencies urge dentists to take numerous precautions

Illinois Department of Public Health’s (IDPH) guidance to limit oral and dental care to emergency and urgent oral and dental care needs.

There are new guidelines from the state and federal level urge dentists to take further precautions to protect their staff and patients in their new world. Like many industries, wearing a mask and screening everyone who comes in their doors for COVID-19 symptoms is a given, but dental clinics don’t just stop there. It is now recommended to install air filtration systems and use techniques that reduce aerosol generation to minimize the risks of COVID. This can result in extensive internal work being done in the short-term but also will likely be a staple to the floor plans when dental clinics are being built.

Will this be the end of the waiting room as we know it?

A central idea has stood out, suggesting that rooms should be kept vacant for up to nearly three-and-a-half hours between patients. With waiting room now empty, patients have been asked to wait in their cars until the appointment begins. This worked well in the pandemic’s warmer months, but what happens when the winter rolls in? There will have to be safe spaces in the office to help keep people out of the waiting room, but also separate through the use of partitions or blocked off areas.

The anatomy of the dental clinic will forever change. Your safety is their utmost priority, but it will call into question the need to retrofit and redesign these spaces to keep everyone safe moving forward.