Coronavirus Update

Dear Hambleton and MacFarlane Orthodontics Family,

We hope this letter finds you and your family in good health.  We are so excited to welcome you back to our office when we open on JUNE 1st.  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 safety.

To that point, we have been tirelessly working on a new addition to our office downstairs. It will feature FOUR, private orthodontic rooms to ensure your maximum safety! We are very excited to share this new addition with you!

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 made so that when you receive care, it’s both safe and comfortable. We want to tell you about the infection control procedures we follow in our practice to keep patients and staff safe.

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). We follow the activities of these agencies so that we are up-to-date on any new rulings or guidance that may be issued. We do this to make sure that our infection control procedures are current and adhere to each agencies’ recommendations. You may see some changes when it is time for your next appointment. We made these changes to help protect our patients and staff.

We want to inform you of some new protocols we are implementing temporarily during this time period:

1. Our office will email you a COVID-19 questionnaire that you need to fill out prior to each appointment. You can also click here to access the form
2. We are trying to eliminate having anyone wait in our waiting room, unless accompanying a minor who needs to be accompanied.  We will ask that you CALL OR TEXT the office (626)795-0634 to let us know you have arrived.  We will inform you to come up if the dental chair is ready.  If it is not, we will text you back as soon as it is.
3. Patients will check-in in the NEW downstairs office. Because of this, we kindly ask that you be ON TIME for your appointment and also have patience with us when scheduling your appointments. 
4. Please brush and floss PRIOR to coming to your appointment as our tooth brushing station has been converted into a handwashing station for now.   Please do not eat prior to the appointment as our tooth brushing station is closed.
5. We require you wear your own mask/face covering into our building and clinic and will ask you to remove the mask when sitting in the dental chair and are ready to work on you.  We want to minimize any potential contamination of other surfaces in the office.  
6. We are encouraging parents, or anyone accompanying the patient, to wait in the car and we can call you when the appointment is over to give you an update and schedule the following appointment.  If you feel more comfortable coming in, we kindly ask that you wash your hands when entering our office, wait in our waiting room, have a mask on at all times and practice social distancing with others. 
7. We will be taking your temperature prior to entering the clinic in the NEW downstairs office. Anyone with temperature of 100.4 or higher will be rescheduled.  We also want to make sure that you haven’t had any flu like symptoms in the last 72 hours.  If you develop symptoms prior to your appointment, please let us know right away.  If you have been exposed to anyone who has Covid-19 in the last week, please let us know that as well.  We are happy to reschedule if needed. 
8. We will ask all patients to wash hands with soap and water for at least 20 seconds immediately when entering the office.  We have hand sanitizer in the reception area and other places in the office for you to use as needed.
9. You may see that our waiting room will no longer offer magazines, children’s toys and so forth, since those items are difficult to clean and disinfect.
10. We also will be increasing the frequency that we are disinfecting high contact surfaces such as the check-in counters, door handles, waiting room chairs, etc. 
11. Personal Protective Equipment:  As usual, we are utilizing universal precautions with all patients to prevent transmission of infectious diseases. The personal protective equipment our team will be using are: surgical masks, shields, disposable hair nets and of course gloves.  For aerosol-generating procedures, or procedures with potential splatter, our team members will be utilizing disposable gowns.

 

Your safety and our team’s safety are of utmost important to all of us!  We appreciate your patience, understanding and cooperation with all of this.  If you have any questions regarding our protocols or your treatment, please don’t hesitate to reach out to us anytime.  Thank you so much! 

 

Sincerely,

Drs. Hambleton and MacFarlane and staff