Keeping Our Patients Safe

We at Des Moines Family Dentistry are committed to keeping you, our patients, and our community as safe and comfortable as possible in our office!

We want to be the first to acknowledge that our new “normal” may look and feel just a bit different for the foreseeable future. Dr. Main has spent many, many hours reading and researching the various ways to prepare Des Moines Family Dentistry post-COVID-19 for the safest experience possible for you, our patients.

Here are some things that we have always done in our office and will continue to do:

• We have always adhered to Standard Precautions which “are the minimum infection prevention practices that apply to all patient care, regardless of suspected or confirmed infection status of the patent, in any setting where health care is delivered”. Standard Precautions include; Hand hygiene, use of PPE (mask, gloves, protective eyewear), respiratory hygiene / etiquette, sharps safety, safe injection practices, sterile instruments and devices, clean and disinfected environmental surfaces
• We have always updated health information at each appointment. This includes taking blood pressure readings at each appointment
• We have always required each patient to use an oral mouth rinse at the start of their appointment
• We have always used high evacuation suction in the doctor’s operators to minimize aerosols
• We have always sterilized all instruments after every use
• We have always used medical-grade disinfectant wipes on all surfaces and objects in the treatment rooms between every patient

Here are some things that we are doing now to ensure your safety since reopening our doors in May 2020, in response to the COVID-19 pandemic:

• We ask screening questions prior to your visit to minimize bringing in any kind of sickness into the office
• We ask that you come to your appointment alone
• We ask you to wait in your car until your treatment room is available to minimize contact with other patients
• We have sneeze guards installed in the reception area
• We have ask screening questions when you arrive at the office
• We wipe down any writing materials used by the public after a single use with medical-grade disinfection wipes
• We obtain your body temperature when you arrive
• We added additional hand sanitizers for your use throughout the office – we will ask you to use these when you enter the office and again before you leave, at minimum
• We removed all shared reading materials in our waiting room
• We use KN95 masks or face shields and head covers in addition to our normal PPE
• We obtain and record our team’s and doctor’s temperature twice daily
• We perform additional cleaning in nontreatment areas
• We implemented the use Dry Shield evacuation systems in each operatoratory
• We implemented the use of Surgically Clean Air units – one of the world’s most advanced standalone medical grade air purifiers – in each of our operatories

We will continue to follow the guidelines issued by the American Dental Association (ADA) and the Center for Disease Control (CDC) in effort to keep you, our patients and our team members as safe as possible.

And we will do our best daily to keep you safe and comfortable in our office!