DPDSmiles reopens with extra safety precautions
Serving DuPage County for over 30 years, DPD Smiles has been providing preventive care for children until recently.
Meeting your needs has been our goal and after following suggestions, we have made some major changes in the last few years.
Making the office eco-friendly, completely digital, and technology forward; we have reduced our environmental footprint significantly.
At the same time, we increased our community presence by offering specialized care in orthodontics and oral surgery for children and adults.
When the coronavirus epidemic came to light, but before it became mandated, we choose to close our office to set an example for the community.
Our goal was to provide care when needed via teledentistry and keep as many families home as possible to reduce the spread and flatten the curve.
Offering extended payment plans, we did everything we could to help patients financially as well. It was a very scary and difficult time for many, but we are pleased to see that our actions have made an impact and we succeeded!
Local case numbers are looking good, hospitals are not overloaded with positive cases, and we are back to work doing what we do best - serving you.
The new normal at DPD Smiles is going to be a big adjustment for most families - it is still an adjustment for us! We were a fun-loving team who enjoyed giving out hugs, high-fives, and so much more. That was the DPD experience many kids were looking forward to. Yes, we had countless patients actually excited for their upcoming dental visits and some that were upset we had to cancel their appointments during the Shelter in Place. So, what can you expect now?
Of course, we have eliminated the toys, books, and magazines from our waiting area for the time being. Our selfie booth is temporarily gone as well, but fear not - we still have our educational entertainment streaming in our waiting room!
Check in is now done via phone or text and in most cases check out can be done that way as well. All doors within the office are open so your family does not have to touch anything. Temperatures are checked, COVID-19 questionnaires are filled out, and health history changes are of utmost importance to our team for your safety. Masks and hand sanitizer are provided if needed. Masks are required for all who enter per state guidelines.
Most of this you may have seen at other establishments, but what is it that we are doing that is new or different? We are glad you asked! We are one of the only businesses with UV light and HEPA filtration systems in every room and corner of open space in our practice - including the foyer. Our goal is to help cleanse the air and any particles on skin, clothing's, masks, hair, etc ... from the get go before you even enter our dental home. Since we treat our practice as our home, our family asks all families entering to remove shoes when entering. This is a common practice in Asian cultures as it helps keep mud, dirt, bacteria, viruses, and so much more out of the house.
New studies are also backing up the efficiency in leaving shoes outside of the home. Studies found that health care workers had evidence of COVID-19 on their shoes. Thus, the shoes we wear never leave our clean home - we do not go outside in them or take them home. Following that principle, we ask all families to enter without their shoes on. Booties are available upon request. While this is a big change, we hope that many families value the steps we take to keep their families safe, especially little ones crawling or exploring on our floors.
We are super excited to announce that we will doing even more to keep families safe and healthy over the next few months as we transition into a new bigger space. This will be at our new location at 722 President St., Wheaton (just a few minutes from our current location). There will be no other businesses in the building which means you will not have to share a small elevator or get cramped next to any other patients. We will have building-wide surgically clean air filtration like they do in hospitals. We will also have more private rooms to help isolate and elimination aerosols.
Furthermore, each room and heavy traffic areas will be equipped with special stand-alone surgical filtration systems equipped with UV-C and electromagnetic filters.
Stay tuned by visiting www.dpdsmiles.com and www.facebook.com/dpdsmiles.