​MHS Mobile Dental Info Regarding Coronavirus (COVID-19)

MHS Mobile Dental COVID-19 Statement

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​At MHS Mobile Dental, our core values focus on putting students and families first and doing what's right. As a school-based healthcare provider we take pride in taking every measure possible to provide a clean and sanitary environment for our patients every day we work in a school setting. For the last decade of providing school-based dental care, our top priority has always been the well-being of our customers, our associates and the communities we serve. Our goal to keep our patients healthy and safe is a top priority and is only heightened during a health care crisis like we face now. With so much attention on COVID-19, we want to assure you we are taking extensive steps to help ensure the health and safety of all students and faculty at every location we visit. We continue as always to follow recommendations from the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) for cleaning regularly, and we are closely monitoring CDC reports for updates regarding Covid-19 and how it might impact our communities as well as how we operate while providing our on-site dental care.

We have listed our day-to-day policies to help you better understand how we operate in a clean, sanitized and safe environment daily. The MHS Mobile Dental staff always utilizes masks, gowns and disposable gloves while treating every patient. Disposable mirrors, air/water syringe tips, prophy angles, and bitewing covers, are used and disposed of after each patient. For items that are not disposable, we follow CDC guidelines of steam autoclave disinfection. Between every patient, our stations are thoroughly disinfected with hospital grade wipes.

In addition to our normal every-day sanitary environment procedures, MHS Mobile Dental will be adding additional personal protection measures to ensure the safety of our patients and our staff. We will be carrying non-touch FDA approved infrared forehead thermometers that we will use to take the temperature of each on-site staff member before they enter a school location. If any MHS staff member is showing flu type symptoms or has a fever, they will immediately be sent home. These thermometers will also be available to use on patients if the schools deem that necessary. Our staff will also be equipped with Level 3 dental masks that offer the greatest level of protection for dental masks. We will also be offering our staff members medical face shields that can be worn during patient encounters to offer even more protection. Our staff will also be using hospital grade protection gowns over their scrubs which will not be allowed to leave our on-site room location. These gowns will be sterilized washed every night. We are asking our school partners to provide our team with the largest space possible so we are able to safely space our dental stations and our waiting patients 6 feet apart from each other. We are also taking special precautions by bringing in smaller groups of students to our on-site clinic. Instead of our typical group size of 8-10 we will only bring in no more than 5 students at a time so we can have one student at each dental station at a time and therefore limit the amount of time in close contact with other students.

We understand that these will be trying times for your school, so we are prepared to work in conjunction with the administrators and nurses to safely and efficiently continue to offer our service to those families who signed up and are in the most need. MHS is also prepared to make adjustments to resume providing our services in the event that the school year is temporarily suspended for a short period of time. Several of our school district clients around Mississippi have deemed MHS Mobile Dental as an essential service because all traditional dental clinics were closed for a long time and currently still have several restrictions. In addition to the increased limited access to dental clinics many parents of your students are, or have been, out of work during this crisis making these types of health services even more important to those families and students.
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As we become aware of new information about coronavirus (COVID-19), we will be sure to let you know any procedures that we may be adding to continue to offer a safe and sanitized environment to provide on-site preventative dental care. You can also find the latest updates at CDC.gov.

What  School Partners are saying about our on-site dental visits in the Fall semester of 2020/2021

2020/2021 Covid-19 Safety Protocol, Procedures & Activity

We have listed our day-to-day policies to help you better understand how we operate in a clean, sanitized and safe environment daily. Also listed is our activity, and upcoming activity, this semester.
 
MHS Mobile Dental Protocol & Procedures
  • Upgraded normal clinic Level 2 masks to Level 3 masks which offer the greatest level of protection
  • Over the masks, our assistants also wear a medical face shield during patient encounters
  • Staff will wear medical grade gowns over their scrubs that are sterilized washed nightly and do not leave the room when we are on site
  • Disposable gloves are used for each patient
  • Disposable mirrors are used for every patient
  • Staff temperature is taken daily before entering any facility
  • Disposable air/water syringe tips are used for every patient
  • Disposable prophy angles are used for every patient
  • Disposable bitewing covers are used for every patient
  • Between every patient each station is wiped down with hospital grade wipes
  • Patients (students) are now brought in smaller groups so as to not have to be within 6 feet of another student while in our on-site clinic
  • Every patient that enters our on-site clinic with have their temp taken (non-touch thermometer) and recorded
  • Dental stations will be placed 6 feet apart

*Currently, as of October 12th 2020, MHS Mobile Dental has over 20 of our Mississippi School District partners who have reviewed our safety plan for working through the Covid-19 pandemic and have signed MOU's for us to continue to provide our service on-site during the 2020/2021 school year. Most bof these deistricts have designated MHS Mobile Dental as an essential healthcare service. For information about these districts, please contact us directly.

On-Site Service Activity Already Provided During This Fall Semester
  • We have provided on-site service for 28 days this Fall semester (Started 8/25/20)
  • Total on-site patient encounters this Fall through 10/9 is over 1,400 
  • Of the 1,400+ patients during the 1st 6 weeks of school, 42.6% of them have been uninsured and received free care. This number is even higher than normal which we believe shows a strong need for these preventative services for our most underserved families during this pandemic.