“Every medical emergency in a clinic is costing a fortune”
A health-care professional is responsible for the well-being of the patients under his or her care. Considering the dental practice in general, most of the dental treatments are non-emergency and are done on outpatient basis. Cases of health emergency primarily due to bad dental health or as a complication of dental treatment are rare, and they often occur due to underlying medical problems.
In spite of adequate care, sudden or unexpected death can occur during the dental treatment because of the underlying causes, such as cardiac arrest or epilepsy, and also due to negligence. Deaths during the course of medical treatment are relatively more common when compared to dental treatments.
Though the possibilities of deaths during dental treatments are rare, no one can deny it in absolute terms. There are no statistical data available on the number of deaths in dental clinics across India or in other countries.
However, there are aberrant reports of such incidents in the literature. One of the websites reports that 1 death occurs in every 4,00,000 cases where anesthesia is used in dental offices. The dentist may or may not be negligent in causing the serious injury or death of the patient, but often the public assumes that the dentist has done something wrong.
No one ever expects any medical emergency in whosoever form to happen in their clinic.
The present day scenario forces health-care professionals including dentists to protect themselves from public rage.
All the doctors, staff inside their clinic should be well trained and aware of the practice of emergency management.
In addition, they should provide appropriate training to their staff so that each person knows what to do and can act promptly. Since these skills are not used every day, regular review is necessary: at least annually but preferably more often.
What Exactly an Emergency Medical Plan Comprises of?
- Medical emergency prevention
- Development of an action plan
- Recognizing the exact condition and state of patient.
- Treatment of the medical emergency
- Emergency drugs and equipment
In many counties it is essential for a dental practitioner to have emergency drugs and equipments. For example, in 2010 Illinois became the first state to enact a law requiring dental offices that administer deep sedation to not only have an automated external defibrillator (AED) available, but also a written medical emergency plan. This new law does not apply to practices that use local anesthetics for routine dental care.
Emergency Preparedness Checklist.
- All staff members have specific assigned duties.
Contingency plans are in place in case a staff member is absent. - All staff members have received appropriate training in the management of medical emergencies.
- The foremost priority of maintain oxygen to the patient, for that oxygen cylinders should be available.
- All clinical staff members are trained in basic life support for health care providers.
- All the emergency equipments should be available inside the clinic.
- Unannounced emergency drills are conducted at least quarterly.
- Apart from the presence of emergency equipments these should should be checked regularly for their working conditions.
- All emergency supplies are restocked immediately after use.
- Emergency drugs should be checked for their expiry dates on time.
- One staff member is assigned the task of ensuring that the above procedures have been completed and to document this checklist review.
