Negative Pressure Rooms at NFDC
The Dental Council has strongly recommended that dental practices explore ways to improve indoor air quality in treatment, waiting and recovery rooms, by exploring ventilation systems, airflows and air patterns, and the interaction of air conditioning systems in a dental practice environment.
With this in mind, Dr Carolyn has made the decision to invest in three negative pressure treatment rooms at Newmarket Family Dental Care. This ensures the extraction of potentially contaminated air from space in which treatments are facilitated.
What is a Negative Pressure Room?
They are a type of hospital-grade room that ensures that patients that potentially have an infectious illness – or patients who are more susceptible to infections from others – are kept isolated from other patients, visitors, and healthcare staff. They are a common method of infection control and have been used to isolate patients with contagious, airborne diseases such as measles, tuberculosis, SARS, MERS, and COVID-19.
Why is this necessary for a dental practice?
COVID-19 spreads through respiratory droplets. These droplets are what fly through the air when someone coughs or sneezes. If another person breathes this in, they can get sick. It’s also present in the mucus and saliva in your mouth and throat, which are are fluids that dentists and their tools generally come in contact with. Due to some dental treatments requiring the use of aerosol procedures, involving high-speed electric and air-driven equipment, some dental devices can also spray significant volumes of these droplets into the immediate vicinity.
How do negative pressure rooms work?
They are called negative pressure rooms because the air pressure inside the room is lower than the air pressure outside the room. This means that when the door is opened, potentially contaminated air or other dangerous particles from inside the room will not flow outside into non-contaminated areas.
Instead, non-contaminated filtered air will flow into the negative pressure room. Contaminated air is sucked out of the room with exhaust systems, which are built with filters that clean the air before it is pumped outside of and away from the healthcare facility.
Negative Pressure Rooms at NFDC
It is for these aerosol-procedure reasons above, that most dental practices have been unable to operate during Level 4 Lockdowns. Many dental practices aren’t designed for high levels of protection from aerosol disease and droplets. As the pandemic continues, the need for dental treatments does not cease, and therefore Newmarket Family Dental Care have made the decision to invest in three negative pressure rooms, which allows for the use of aerosol procedures with lower risk of potential contamination.
Contact us at Newmarket Family Dental Care, or book your appointment and we’ll be happy to discuss our new negative pressure rooms and how they keep you safe while undertaking our services.