Almost all dental procedures put aerosol droplets in the air, a fact that hasn’t garnered much attention during the COVID-19 pandemic, said Dr. Ronald Schmidt, who owns Menomonee Falls-based
Dental Studio North.
Schmidt, who has been in the dental industry for 36 years, says many dental offices are enhancing their safety protocol to include requiring patients and staff to wear masks and personal protective equipment. However, what many dentists are not thinking about is office air quality, especially amid the pandemic, he said.
The reality is that patients cannot wear masks during dental procedures and with COVID-19 being an airborne virus, aerosol droplets cast into the environment could be a potential risk for dentists and office staff, Schmidt said.
“What the science is telling us is that coronavirus is spread by aerosol droplets, by speaking or any type of moisture from the mouth going into the air,” Schmidt said. “When we’re working on patients, our high-speed dental drills are spraying water and air, producing an aerosol that’s going into the environment of our office space.”
Schmidt and Sari Schiff, who owns a local consultancy firm, have partnered to form Air Dental Studio, a company that distributes hospital-grade air purification systems to dental and medical offices.
The two products the company offers include a wall-mounted and a portable HEPA filtration system, which is designed to filter all of the air in an office up to 12 times an hour, eliminating what Schmidt calls “invisible risks.”
“Almost every dental office that I know of has a high-volume evacuation system that does reduce that, but this goes just a step beyond that and really evacuates all the air in the office,” Schmidt said.
After researching the market, Schmidt and Schiff discovered a need in the greater-Milwaukee area for medical-grade purification systems in dental offices.
“I think it’s just as important as any other tool in our office,” Schmidt said. “We’re dealing with patient’s health and to make sure we focus on their overall health, not just their dental health.”
Air Dental Studio’s air purification systems start at $7,000, but the price may vary depending on the layout of the office or building. Schmidt says these systems can be installed in a variety of settings, including schools, office buildings and restaurants or anywhere with a large gathering of a pandemic.
