A Safe Approach to Aerosols

By Kandis V. Garland, RDH, MS

Aerosols are generated by a variety of dental procedures. Oral health professionals have always been aware of aerosols and pathogens; however, the COVID-19 pandemic brought the issue to the forefront. Several guidance documents were published by a number of stakeholders in dentistry at the beginning of the pandemic recommending a variety of safety strategies, including pre-screening patients with questions and temperature checks, staggering of patient appointment times, decreasing the number of patients in the facility, changes to personal protective equipment (PPE), and aerosol mitigation strategies, such as high-velocity air evacuation (HVE), or high-volume evacuation.

* References can be found in the original article via the link below.
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