COVID-19 Update

Dear Parkview Pediatric Dentistry Families,

Since we closed our office in March our country has been able to understand the COVID-19 virus more, however there is still much to learn. Our office electively closed prior to the state mandate and will always remain committed to serving our patients in the safest manner possible.   It is important for children to receive regular dental healthcare and we fully believe that maintaining a healthy mouth is integral to overall health. We have taken many steps to ensure that our office can provide the exceptional dental care you expect from Parkview while also protecting the safety of you, your children and our staff.

Although our office has been closed for regular care for the last 1.5 months we have been busy getting our office and office staff ready to care for your children. As dentists we have always used the most up to date infection control practices. We have reviewed and updated these practices to further protect our patients. These include:

• Air Scrubbers: you will not “see” these in the office, but all of our air conditioner units have UV sterilization lights installed which kill 99.9% of bacteria and viruses that would circulate in the air.
• Use of high filtration masks and face shields for all clinical staff to protect our staff, as well as prevent spread of germs from us to you.
• Dedicated team members for office disinfection throughout the day.
• Pre-appointment screenings to ensure patients (and their parents) do not have symptoms, or been in contact with a person who has had COVID-19 symptoms. (PLEASE COMPLETE THIS ON YOUR PATIENT PORTAL PRIOR TO YOUR VISIT)
• “Virtual Waiting Room” to allow our patients to wait in their car until their appointment.
• Continued office disinfection from GermBlast
• Closure of all patient “play areas”
• Employee checks prior to each day of work to insure no employee has COVID-19 symptoms, if any suspicious symptoms are present that employee will follow appropriate guidelines for testing and isolation.
• Working extended days and hours to spread out appointment times to prevent overlap of patients and allow appropriate social distancing in the office.
• Limit of procedures that are “high risk” and create aerosols
• Limitation of visits for our patients with complex medical conditions.

Treatment alterations:

As you know Texas is one of the early states to open back up. In doing so they have a tiered approach. We will also have a tiered approach to our reopening.

-All dental cleanings will be altered to prevent aerosol, this is because the traditional cleaning creates an aerosol which could possibly cause transmission of virus particles. We believe this change will improve social distancing, limit aerosol, and also give our staff an opportunity to more closely show your child the proper brushing habits at home. We will also be dispensing disclosing tablets to your children so they can visualize the problem areas and improve their brushing at home.

You can help protect your family and our Parkview family by:

• Sanitizing your hands immediately upon arrival to our office.
• Wearing a mask at all times while in the office, at least you as the parent.
• Only bring those members of the family essential for the visite.
• Complete all your paperwork online before getting to the office.
• If you or any member of your family has experienced recent COVID symptoms we kindly ask that you reschedule your appointment. Our staff will be happy to assist you to find another time that will work for your schedule.