By Lee Slaton, Vice President of Healthcare; Smart Training

I’d like to begin this month’s compliance article with gratitude for a deadline extension on this article to less than 12 hours before its release. That allowed me time to ensure it was as up-to-date as possible.

I’ll begin with a short review of Dr. Anthony Fauci’s testimony before the U.S. House of Representatives from just a few hours ago.

Dr. Anthony Fauci is the long-time leader (since 1984) of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, which is part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH). Dr. Fauci has advised six presidents on HIV/AIDS and many other domestic and global health issues. He was one of the principal architects of the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), a program that’s saved millions of lives throughout the developing world. He is the consummate professional—not a fear-monger, but a realist—and his observations are science-based.

Following are key points Dr. Fauci made.

  • This is going to get worse before it gets better.
  • He sees the mortality rate of the coronavirus “dropping” to “only” 1%. It now stands at about 3.4%. A 1% mortality rate is 10 times higher than the common flu.
  • The common flu kills anywhere from 12,000 to 80,000 Americans per year. (It was 80,000 in 2017—the worst year on record; not counting the Spanish Flu in 1918, which killed 500,000 Americans over two years).
  • We do have the power to affect the final outcome.

Let’s do the math. Let’s say we average 40,000 deaths per year from the flu. This means we’re talking about 400,000 deaths in the United States alone from the coronavirus.

The CDC and ADA believe that dental practices are a vital link in breaking the chain of this virus. So, what can you do to positively affect the outcome? Educate yourself. Our outcomes are interlinked. You have the power to affect the outcomes for yourself and those around you.

About the Training on Recommendations Regarding Coronavirus (COVID-19)

Smart Training has created a concise online training course, based on recommendations from the CDC and ADA. It will give you the tools you need to protect yourself, your loved ones, work associates, and patients. Smart Training is offering it free-of-charge.

Those of you we’ve worked with over the past decade know our passion for promoting best practices with our clients. More than 15,000 dental professionals have counted on us to provide them with assistance in this endeavor. We view this as our opportunity to pay it forward by providing this training to anyone in the industry.

You can sign up for yourself and your entire office. There are no gimmicks; just good, solid information. The situation is changing rapidly, and this module will be updated to reflect changes in strategies and recommendations from the CDC and the ADA. The more quickly we’re educated on how to deal with the coronavirus, the better. Once your team has completed the training, our recommendation is to review the information at your next team huddle, and determine how to best apply the recommendations to your practice.

Smart Training conducted over 1,000 inspections of dental practices across the country, and the company is happy to share what it’s learned with TDA members.
Access training module.