Mortenson Dental Partners, a dental service organization founded in Middletown, Ky., has shared strategies it used to adapt to the changing dental landscape during the pandemic.
Mortenson Dental Partners includes more than 140 practices across nine states, with over 1,800 team members and treating almost 1 million patients each year.
Four things Mortenson Dental Partners has done to adapt during the pandemic:
1. Drive clinical decisions with science and validated research.
2. Following industry trends from China and other countries, the DSO established a task force early on to plan for different levels of impact. The task force developed an online resource with the latest news, standard safety protocols, practice print-outs and answers to frequently asked questions, among other things. The site also included an incident reporting form and an area for team members to ask questions.
3. A limited number of practices remained open for emergency services, consolidating the DSO's supply of personal protective equipment.
4. The DSO incorporated a gradual, phased approach to reopening practices for patient and team safety, ensuring that adequate PPE was available and proper disinfection was conducted at every location. Patient volumes since reopening have exceeded U.S. industry levels.
"While we cannot predict what the future holds, we feel well prepared to weather another COVID-19 storm if needed," the DSO's website page reads.