Dentistry during the COVID-19 Epidemic: An Italian Workflow for the Management of Dental Practice

Matteo Peditto, Simone Scapellato, Antonia Marcianò, Paola Costa and Giacomo Oteri
Additional contact information
Matteo Peditto: Postgraduate School of Oral Surgery, Department of Biomedical, Dental Sciences and Morphofunctional Imaging, University of Messina, 98125 Messina, Italy
Simone Scapellato: Postgraduate School of Oral Surgery, Department of Biomedical, Dental Sciences and Morphofunctional Imaging, University of Messina, 98125 Messina, Italy
Antonia Marcianò: Department of Clinical and Experimental Medicine, University of Messina, 98125 Messina, Italy
Paola Costa: Postgraduate School of Oral Surgery, Department of Biomedical, Dental Sciences and Morphofunctional Imaging, University of Messina, 98125 Messina, Italy
Giacomo Oteri: Postgraduate School of Oral Surgery, Department of Biomedical, Dental Sciences and Morphofunctional Imaging, University of Messina, 98125 Messina, Italy

IJERPH, 2020, vol. 17, issue 9, 1-15

Abstract: The COVID-19 outbreak has raised concerns about infection control all over the world. Among health workers, dentists are particularly exposed to the COVID-19 infection risk. The aim of this paper is to present a workflow to manage dental procedures already in use at the Dental Unit of the University Hospital of Messina. The proposed workflow accounts for the many aspects of dental practitioners’ risk in the COVID-19 era, and focuses on the assessment of patient risk level, a two-phase dental procedure management (remote and face-to-face), and the use of specific preventive measures. No cases of COVID-19 infection were detected among patients and staff of the dental unit in a two-month period of time while using this protocol. This workflow seems a promising and effective solution to manage dental procedures during the COVID-19 outbreak, and could be implemented in both public and private practices until the emergency is contained.

Keywords: dentistry; COVID-19; epidemic; infection control; prevention; dental management; workflow; dental procedure; preventive measures (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (7)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/17/9/3325/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/17/9/3325/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:17:y:2020:i:9:p:3325-:d:356394

Access Statistics for this article

IJERPH is currently edited by Ms. Jenna Liu

More articles in IJERPH from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().