Michelle Lee, CPC, is the Executive Director of OSAP. She discusses her organization's great work to educate and work toward dental infection control and patient safety. She talks about how OSAP helps guide dentistry through crises like AIDS and HIV and now COVID-19.
Video transcription:
Liz Lundry, RDH - “Hi, thanks for joining this installment of Estella Life Innovator series. I'm Liz Lundry, a hygienist and the clinical education manager for StellaLife. And today we're going to be hearing from Michelle Lee. She is the executive director of the Organization for Safety, Asepsis and Prevention, or OSEP. Her career of over 30 years includes dental staffing and executive search, consulting and speaking to dental healthcare professionals on many employment related topics, including teen development, communication and leadership. Michelle began her career with OSAP in 2018. Her true passion for the dental industry is evident in all she does as she focuses on guiding OSAP to achieve their vision that every dental visit is a safe dental visit. Michelle is joining us from her home in Atlanta, Georgia. Let's welcome Michelle Lee.”
Michelle Lee, CPC - “Hello. I'm Michelle Lee, the executive director for OSAP, the Organization for Safety, Asepsis and Prevention. So for those of you who do not know who we are, what is OSAP? So we are a dental membership association that our total focus is on dental infection control and patient safety. We've been around for about 36 years. We were started because of the AIDS and HIV crisis and help guide dentistry through all of those early changes that needed to be made in regards to infection control. The associations continue to grow, but yet I think for a long time I've said, we've been dentistry's best kept secret. Lately, the past several weeks, while we're all at home and sheltering in place and taking time to be engaged online and looking for answers, many of you may have learned about OSAP. We've been very involved with all the national dental associations. We are very much an Association that likes to collaborate. We've had some co-branded webinars. We've had two now with the American Dental Association, and we want to be there for all the national associations because we do have the subject matter experts that have spent their career focused on dental infection prevention and patient safety. So who are our members? Well, our members are made up of dental professionals, just like you. We have dental assistants and hygienists and dentists and front office staff and office managers. We also have consultants and educators. We have the corporate members. So these may be the manufacturers and distributors of infection control products. They're part of our group. And so our vision is that every dental visit is a safe dental visit. So we want to be there to provide you that education and those resources that you need. Many of you may be involved in other associations, and we love that. But you can also be a member of OSAP as well. So what can we do for you right now? So let's talk about what's going on in today's world. When it became apparent that we were going to need to provide more resources with COVID-19, we made the decision to open up our website to our member-only sections of the website to anyone. So right now, for the next few weeks, you will be able to go to the OSAP site and use any of the resources that we have that are normally reserved just for members. We hope eventually, when you get back to work, you will consider joining OSAP so that you can have access to our membership ongoing into all of these great resources. So I thought I'd walk you through some of the resources that we have right now that you could be using. If you go to our website, OSAP.org, that's OSAP.org, at the very top of the page, you're going to see our link to our COVID-19 resource page, we call it our toolkit. And on that page, we think we've done a great job of sharing all the links that are out there to everyone's resources. So we have all the information that CDC has shared. So there's links to get you to their sections. We also have links to ADA's site, to all of their COVID-19 updates, to ADHA. We have links to OSHA, EPA, FDA, we have links to all the state dental sites. So if you want to go in and see what's happening in your state, what guidelines or mandates, possibly that your state has shared, we have updated our resource page to include that. So I think you'll find it very complete and it's a great place. So you can just go to one place to find it all. That's what we've worked really hard on making that happen. And so also from that home page, you'll see a tab that says Knowledge Center. If you press that tab, it will give you a drop down and in that drop down, you'll see all kinds of educational resources. One of my favorite sections is the toolkits, and we have all types of toolkits on there that can help you and your entire team. So, for instance, there's information on dental unit waterlines, all the information you need to know on treating and testing your dental unit waterlines. We have information on reprocessing, so everything you need to know about sterilization. We even have scripts on how to talk to your patients about what you're doing to keep them safe, and don't you think that right now that's going to be important? Now, I will say these scripts aren't COVID-19 specific, but they are talking about why we do what we do in the office, why we sterilize our instruments and why we don't open them until we're at the chair so the patient can see that these have been sterile. We talk about why we wear the masks, why we ask them to put on the safety glasses. So all of those scripts are there and it's a great tool for your entire team. Also on the site, you will find information that your infection control coordinator can use. And in 2016, CDC, when they put out their summary of the 2003 guidelines they included in this update, the recommendation that every general office have a designated infection control coordinator. And so if you have not taken that step, now is a perfect time. And now is a perfect time, while many of you may still be at home sheltering in place, to have your infection to designate the infection control coordinator and have them use these resources. Whoever the infection control coordinator is, there's a job description, so that really gives details of what they need to be responsible for, so that's going to help you as well. Our Association also hosts two major events a year, and you can always find this information on our site. The first one that we do each year is called the Dental Infection Control Boot Camp. This is a three day, very intensive foundational training program, and I think right now, your infection control coordinator, this would be perfect for them to plan to attend that event next January. We also have our annual conference, which is held each spring. It's been moved to late summer due to this event, but you'll have that information there as well. And our annual conference really focuses on emerging issues. And of course, this year we're going to focus on COVID-19. Our keynote speaker is actually an infectious disease doctor in New York. He was already scheduled before all of this happened, and he's the author of the book "Superbugs: The Race to Stop an Epidemic", name is Dr. Matt McCarthy, and I think you'll all find him absolutely fascinating. It's great timing, he's been on the front lines and that city that has been hit so hard. So we look forward to having him as our keynote, our Zap lecturer this year. So those are a few of the things from OSAP, but one of the biggest things that's happening right now is this year we announced or release our certificate program. This is a three step program that we partnered with the DALE Foundation. So it's the OSAP-DALE Foundation Dental Infection Control certificate. If you complete all three steps, you will receive a certificate that you can frame and hang in your office. We will give you the correct verbiage to place it on your business card or in your signature on your email, but it will show your patients, your community, other professionals, that you have gone that extra step to make sure that you know all that you need to know about infection prevention. So I invite you. You can learn more about it by going to the website, which is DentalInfectionControl.org. All three steps can be completed online. So the first two are actual educational modules that you'll complete. The first one takes about an hour. The second one takes about ten to 12 hours to complete. You can start and stop it's the e-handbook and I think you're going to find it one of the most engaging, interesting, informative learning tools that you've worked with in a long time. And then the final step will be the E Handbook Assessment, which is 50 questions for you to complete, and that will once you pass that, will allow you to receive the certificate and be deemed a certificate holder of the OSAP-DALE Foundation General Infection Control Certificate program. So we're real excited about that and I hope all of you will take a moment to go and explore that. Again, that website, it's our micro site, is DentalInfectionControl.org, and it will if you go to the Education tab, choose that you'll find out all about the certificate program. The next thing you will do after the certificate program next year, in 21, and this information is also on the DentalInfectionControl.Org site, you will be able to sit for the certification exam. The certification will allow you to earn credentials that you will place after your name to show that you've even reached another level, a higher level of knowledge within dental infection prevention and patient safety. So more to come on that. That won't be ready until 21. But that will be an exam that you actually go to a testing center. It's a high stakes exam. So you'll show your ID, your fingerprint, to be able to sit for that exam and all the prerequisites for that exam are also on this website. So I'm really excited that we have that for you today. The other thing I wanted to share is that also on our website is asked OSAP under the Knowledge tab, click on Ask OSAP. If you have any questions regarding dental infection prevention, please, you can search our FAQs there under the Ask OSAP site, or you can submit a question and we have someone that is full time, a subject matter expert. She's a dentist who responds to those questions. If it has to do with a regulation, she'll cite that or if it has to do with guidance, she will share that, could be state specific, if it's about a product, she will refer you back to your IFU's instructions for use for that particular manufacturer, but we hope that will be another great resource for you. So I want to thank StellaLife for allowing us to be on their program today. I think this is great. Gives all of you such a wonderful opportunity to learn about all the different areas of dentistry and so many great professionals out there. I've enjoyed tuning in, but we hope you will consider looking at OSAP for a membership as well because we think it's something that you will benefit from for years to come. And so until next time, I'll sign off and say goodbye. And again, thanks. Thanks for your time and thanks for letting me be part of your day. Bye now.”
Liz Lundry, RDH - “Thank you, Michelle. What a great resource. That's a lot of great information that we can really use right now. So thank you all for joining us today. Please come back next week. We're going to be hearing from Jen Lazarus of the JP Institute, and she's going to be talking about the mysterious vagus nerve as it relates to stress and the immune system. We all need help with that right now, right? So please join us next Friday at 12:00 Pacific, 03:00 Eastern for our next installment of the StellaLife Innovator Series. Thank you so much.”