Tag Archives: HEPA

Removing the fear of going to the doctor’s office

For many people, a trip to the local doctor’s office—for whatever reason, big or small—is fraught with fear. There’s even a term for it: White Coat Syndrome. Seems that sufferers of White Coat Syndrome show signs of an elevated heart rate, increased blood pressure and rapid breathing when in a physician’s office, often skewing the results of standard diagnostic tests. They even get so worked up they may forget salient details as to why they came to see a doctor in the first place, requiring them to write down all questions and concerns.

Now with the spread of COVID-19, sufferers of White Coat Syndrome—and everyone else—have more concerns about entering a doctor’s office. That’s because the novel coronavirus is transmitted via aerosolized droplets when an infected person coughs or sneezes. And it’s logical that infected people would seek out treatment in doctor’s offices, where they would come in contact with other people susceptible to the contagion.

According to the New York Times, people are avoiding hospitals and doctor’s offices, cancelling regularly scheduled appointments and limiting their trips to the doctor’s for minor illness and injuries. And, according to the Boston Globe, emergency rooms across the country have seen a 40 percent drop in cases. People just aren’t going to seek physicians.

Removing the fear of going to the doctor’s office

It’s not for lack of trying from major health institutions though. The Mayo Clinic, Johns Hopkins, the Cleveland Clinic and others have issued statements and public service announcements regarding doctor visits during the pandemic, outlining ways for people to be safer. These include wearing masks, using hand sanitizers and social distancing when in waiting rooms.

Another way to ensure the safety of patients and staff: installing free-standing air purification systems, like Aeramax Professional air purifiers. These commercial-grade purifiers use a four-stage True HEPA filtration system to remove up to 99.97 percent of airborne contaminants, like viruses, the flu, bacteria and germs from enclosed spaces.  Since they are portable, they don’t add additional burden to existing HVAC systems, like bulky in-system HEPA filters do, and can be located in spots here people congregate, like waiting rooms.

Removing the fear of going to the doctor’s office

In fact, scientists have taken up the call for the use of air purifiers. In the September issue of the journal Environment International, researchers outlined the positive effects of using air purifiers to combat the transmission of COVID-19 in indoor air:

“While uncertainties remain regarding the relative contributions of the different transmission pathways, we argue that existing evidence is sufficiently strong to warrant engineering controls targeting airborne transmission as part of an overall strategy to limit infection risk indoors. Appropriate building engineering controls include sufficient and effective ventilation… enhanced by particle filtration and air disinfection, avoiding air recirculation and avoiding overcrowding. Often, such measures can be easily implemented and without much cost…”

So, while air purifiers can’t eliminate a fear of white coats, they can alleviate concerns for virus and bacteria transmission, making it safer to go back to a doctor’s office again.

 

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It makes perfect sense: healthier employees are happier employees. However, many dental lab owners may believe developing a wellness program or a smoking cessation class is the path to employee happiness. Not so fast.

According to a recent study commissioned by the Building Engineering Services Association in the United Kingdom, almost 70 percent of office workers polled said poor indoor air quality in the workplace made for negative feelings, and worse, lowered productivity. The same could be true of dental lab workers, who work in dusty, close quarters amongst grinding machinery kicking up particulate into the air.

air quality in dental labs

“The health impacts of poor outdoor air quality are well-documented and have been linked to respiratory tract infections, lung cancer and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease,” said Steven Loughney of Siemens Building Technologies in a report. “Indoors you’ll find these same pollutants intermingled with dust, carpet fibers, fungal spores, cleaning products, photocopy residues or building materials, which create quite an unhealthy cocktail of contaminants that eventually permeate across the workplace.”

Indoor spaces where poor air is circulated ad nauseum often create symptoms of Sick Building Syndrome—sluggish behavior, frequent headaches, lowered resistance to viruses and colds, difficulty concentrating and increased absenteeism—among occupants.

The EPA estimates that Sick Building Syndrome accounts for $60 billion in lost revenue per year. What’s more, it’s estimated that $220 billion is lost in worker productivity due to absenteeism and employee sickness. In fact, the average cost of one employee sick day is $2650.

In many cases, poor building design and inadequate ventilation systems are to blame. There is, however, a way to quickly boost indoor air quality in dental labs, making employees both happier and healthier: installing AeraMax Professional air purifiers.

These commercial-grade air purification systems effectively and efficiently remove up to 99.97 percent of airborne contaminants, like viruses, odors, volatile organic compounds and bacteria from lab settings using hospital-like True HEPA filtration.

The four-stage filtration system of AeraMax Professional systems automatically senses when air needs to be cleaned, working behind the scenes to refresh air and improve the overall health of occupants. That, in turn, can overcome the effects of sick building syndrome and reverse the negativity experienced by employees. So, in this case, healthier means happier.

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With the advent of AeraMax Professional’s new PureView™ technology, facility personnel, office managers and others in fields ranging from dental labs and manufacturing to daycare centers, health care institutions, educational centers and more can actually see these commercial-grade air purifiers working. That’s because they make the invisible—germs, bacteria, volatile organic compounds, odors, viruses and the like—visible.

PureView uses an innovative EnviroSmart 2.0 technology, which employs laser PM2.5 sensors to scan and analyze a room, activating the air purification system when contaminants are present. Because each unit has a large digital display, occupants can see the cleaning progress.

Pureview

The display showcases when heavy pollutants are in the air with a red alert graphic. When a higher fan speed is needed, the display will indicate ‘cleaning’ and cycles through a purification process.

The on-screen air quality grade (clean, fair and poor) is closely tied to US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and World Health Organization (WHO) recommended air quality levels.

As the PureView technology continues removing particulates from the air, the display will show a readout of the percentage of particles captured, changing to a yellow graphic. When the graphic turns green, the air is clean. Also, the display offers a visual readout of VOCs and odors in the air to let occupants know the contaminants are being removed.

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It’s bad enough that the dental profession has been called the most dangerous by the U.S. Department of Labor, now it has to contend with another problem: Silicosis.

Silicosis is something more closely related to the construction industry, where workers breathe in silica dust from construction materials. It results in the scarring of lung tissue from the silica dust, and produces symptoms like coughing, wheezing, sharp chest pains and even fevers. Left untreated, it results in difficulty breathing and even death.

Silicosis is something more closely related to the construction industry, where workers breathe in silica dust from construction materials

So how does the dental profession also suffer from a malady that most often affects rock miners, stone cutters and heavy construction personnel? Seems the grinding that occurs in dental labs and in dental offices produces the same dusty environment. But where construction workers wear elaborate rebreathers to protect against inhaling dust, dental professionals often are left only with surgical masks—or nothing at all.

According to the Centers for Disease Control’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Reports (MMWR), research into occupational illness uncovered nine cases where dental professionals had silicosis from long-term exposure—and in some cases, the individuals died from respiratory failure. The MMWR noted that exposure to silica dust in dental labs can occur from mixing powders, removing castings from molds, polishing castings and using silica sand for abrasive blasting and sanding.

Silicosis is something more closely related to the construction industry, where workers breathe in silica dust from construction materials

One way to protect against silicosis is by focusing on air hygiene—scrubbing indoor air of harmful contaminants. AeraMax Professional commercial-grade air purifiers do just that—eliminating up to 99.97 percent of harmful pollutants like germs, dust, allergens, viruses, volatile organic compounds (VOCs) and odors from enclosed spaces, using hospital-like True HEPA filtration that efficiently and effectively cleans the air.

Using AeraMax Professional air purifiers significantly reduce particulate from indoor air, ensuring that dental lab workers needn’t worry about the hazards of working in lab settings. What’s more, with AeraMax Professional’s PureView technology, occupants can see the purifier’s work in removing particulate from the air.

PureView uses an innovative EnviroSmart 2.0 technology, which employs sensors to scan and analyze a room, activating the air purification system when contaminants are present. Because each unit has a large digital display, occupants can see the cleaning progress.

When cleaning begins, the display announces it in bold letters and cycles through a purification process. As the AeraMax Professional air purifier continues removing particulates from the air, the display will show a readout of the percentage of particles captured. Also, the display offers a visual readout of VOCs and odors in the air to let occupants know the contaminants are being removed.

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According to the U.S. Department of Labor, the dental profession is one of the most dangerous, because of the typical working conditions and chances of breathing in harmful contaminants.

But some of the dangers affecting dental lab workers aren’t because of dust coming from the substrates they work with—germs, bacteria and viruses affect workers, too. Given the close proximity of work stations and workers, the threat of catching the flu or germ-spread diseases is very real.

So how can the dental profession combat contaminants? There are several ways.

First, supervisors should encourage workers who are ill to stay away—sounds harsh, but the transmission of flu and viruses can be greatly reduced by ensuring sick workers stay home.

They should frequently wash their hands to remove any germs they might come in contact with on common surfaces, like doorknobs, tabletops and the like.

And for those workers who are on-the-job?

They should frequently wash their hands to remove any germs they might come in contact with on common surfaces, like doorknobs, tabletops and the like.

The complete line of AeraMax Professional air purifiers does just that, removing up to 99.97 percent of contaminants—like viruses, germs, bacteria, allergens, volatile organic compounds and odors—from indoor air. Using hospital-like True HEPA filtration, these purifiers sense when the air is dirty and work quietly and efficiently to automatically rid the air of pollutants. As an added bonus, commercial-grade AeraMax Professional air purifiers help dental labs keep ahead of the ever-present problem of airborne dust derived from grinding and casting molds.

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