To Our Wonderful Patients and Their Families:
We hope this letter finds you and your family in good health. We miss your children and their smiling faces. Redmond Ridge Pediatric Dentistry plans to start seeing patients on June 1st, 2020. It has been difficult for us not being able to see all of you. Our community has been through a lot over the last few months, and all of us are looking forward to resuming our normal habits and routines. While many things have changed, one thing has remained the same: our commitment to your children’s dental health and safety.
The decision made to re-open on June 1st, 2020 is in accordance with the Governor’s Stay-At-Home policy, which extends to May 31st, 2020. Hopefully, this will also give us time to procure sufficient personal protective equipment (PPE), implement new protocols, and provide training to ensure the safety of our patients and staff, specifically in response to COVID-19. However, we may need to postpone our re-opening date if we are not able to obtain adequate PPE as we are facing an extreme international and national shortage of masks that are FDA approved.
Infection control has always been a top priority for our practice and you may have seen this during your visits to our office. Our infection control processes are in place so that when your children receive care, it's both safe and comfortable. Our office follows infection control recommendations made by the American Dental Association® (ADA), the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA). Regarding COVID-19 specifically, we have closely followed these organizations/agencies so we are up-to-date on any new rules, guidance, and recommendations. In addition, we have attended countless webinars, continuing education lessons; and participated in nationwide colleague forums. We will continue to do so, so we can be informed of the safest way to provide dental care for kids in our community again.
You may see some changes when it is time for your next appointment. We made these changes to help protect our patients and staff. For example:
- When our office communicates with you about scheduling, we will email you a link to COVID-19 screening questionnaire and medical health history form. It’s best to fill out these screening questions and update medical history prior to appointment. You’ll be asked those same questions again when you are in the office.
- Please arrive 15 minutes prior to your appointment time. When you arrive, please wait in your car and call the office. We will let you know when to enter the office (This is to help us adhere to social distancing). If you are late, you may need to reschedule.
- We will be taking temperature at the entrance. If the temperature is above 100.4 F, per CDC guidelines, we will need to reschedule the appointment beyond14 days after the last day of fever, or any possible COVID-19 symptom.
- Only one parent is allowed to accompany your child/children. The accompanying parent is required to wear a face mask prior to entering the office.
- We have hand sanitizer that we will ask you to use when you enter the office. You will also find some in the reception area and other places in the office for you to use as needed.
- You may see that our waiting room will no longer offer magazines, coffee, juice, children’s toys and so forth, to avoid unnecessary contact.
- Appointments will be arranged and rescheduled to allow for social distancing between patients. This may mean that you’re offered fewer options for scheduling your appointment.
- We will do our best to allow greater time between patients to reduce waiting times for you, as well as to reduce the number of patients in the reception area at any one time.
We look forward to seeing you again and are happy to answer any questions you may have about the steps we take to keep you, your children, and every patient, safe in our practice. To make an appointment, please call our office at 425-284-9884 or visit our website at https://www.redmondridgepediatricdentistry.com/.
We appreciate your patience and understanding in this process. Thank you for your continued support of our clinic. We are excited to see you soon.
Sincerely,
Dr. Christine Wang and her team
