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

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: COVID-19; dental management; dental procedure; dentistry; epidemic; infection control; prevention; preventive measures; workflow.

Figure 1

Flow chart of “urgency of treatment” category assignation, a modified version of the one proposed by SDCEP [43].

Figure 2

Proposed flow-chart for patient management.