Brett Allen (00:19) Hi, Brett Allen here, host of the Marketing32 show where I connect with leading dentists, dental influencers, and industry experts to uncover the latest and greatest on how to help your dental practice grow and thrive. This episode is brought to you by always our team here at Marketing32. We are the only dental marketing team that I know of with a performance guarantee that if you’re not growing, you don’t pay us. So we truly try to partner with dentists that we know we can make an impact and difference in their practice.

If you need help with your marketing head over to marketing32 and schedule a quick discovery call with Brax on our team. We’ll set you straight to make sure if we can help you or not. Quick shout out to Dr. Mohammed Attia. Had him on the show recently. We talked all about adding implants into your practice as a service, getting certified. He’s a brilliant educator and leader in that space. Implants are in a phenomenal way. You can make an impact in your patient’s lives. And so check out that episode if that interests you.

Super excited to have a new friend of mine, Joyce Weeks on the show today. This is a side of dentistry. I was telling her before the show, I didn’t even realize was such a big deal, but compliance is a big deal. Joyce Weeks has a BS and MSC is the owner of Dental Ed, Inc. and a science nerd turned compliance crusader, making infection control and dental safety surprisingly clear and even kind of fun.

with a background in immunology and a lifelong connection to dentistry. She translates complex regulations into real world strategies your whole team can actually use. Joyce brings a fresh empowering approach to dental education, making microbes, masks, and monitoring make sense. Joyce, excited to have you on the show. Thanks for coming today.

Joyce (02:03) Thank you so much for having me. I’m excited to be here.

Brett Allen (02:06) Yeah, this will be fun. You’re a fun individual and I know we’re going to have some good time together. ⁓ So tell us about your background. Like how did you get into dentistry and even more specifically this, you know, microbiology and, you know, compliance and things like that.

Joyce (02:22) Yeah, of course. So I actually grew up in a dental office. My dad was a dentist and I’m from San Diego. So in the San Diego area and my mom actually started this company 37 years ago. So back when all the regulations changed. Yeah. So she was a nurse teaching cardiac patients and when all the regulations started changing in California.

Brett Allen (02:37) wow.

Joyce (02:46) ⁓ My dad said, you know, we really need somebody that can help us figure out what we’re supposed to do because it’s really confusing. We don’t understand what OSHA wants, the health department, the demo board. There’s just so much conflicting information. ⁓ so we need somebody that can just read all the regulations and then show us what we’re supposed to do. So that’s how the company started. And then I was not planning to do this. I actually went to Colorado State University for undergrad and got a degree in biology. ⁓

Brett Allen (03:03) Mm.

Joyce (03:15) and started taking, I took a human and animal disease course. I was planning to be a vet as everybody, like the vast majority of people at CSU, right? Like half the population there, I feel like. Right, yeah, it’s an awesome school. love it out there. I still have family out in Colorado too. So it’s one of my favorite states. So yeah, so I went to Colorado State and then while I was there, I did a year of undergrad actually out in Ireland.

Brett Allen (03:21) ⁓ awesome. Yeah, yeah. that’s a big vet program.

Yeah.

Joyce (03:42) really enjoyed being out there. And when I took a immunology class and human animal disease class, that’s when I figured out I really, really love ⁓ sending infectious diseases, understanding how our bodies respond to them, like how we fight off infectious disease, all of that stuff. And that was what led to me getting a master’s in immunology and global health. ⁓ I moved back to San Diego to do my thesis research. It was on HIV vaccine research here at the Scripps Research Institute.

Brett Allen (03:52) Mm.

Mmm.

Joyce (04:11) And

when I finished that, was like, really wanted to teach. I was not good in the lab. I wanted to talk to people and working in a lab, everyone wears headphones. You don’t talk to anybody. Now, with a mom, I’m like, that sounds great. But at the time, was like, really want to, you know, was in my late 20s and I was ready to start my career. So.

I just, my mom said, why don’t you go start teaching with me? You can teach about bloodborne pathogens. And I was going to apply for a fellowship with the CDC. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention was my goal. ⁓ Started following her around and going into different dental offices. And I loved it. I got to meet new people every day, make my own hours, and actually like make a difference because I realized I was filling a niche that was not ⁓ available because people in the dental field have

Brett Allen (04:44) Mm-hmm.

Joyce (05:05) They understand like what protective attire is. There’s a lot of explanation about what you have to do, but there was no expla, nobody was taking the time to explain why. And that’s I was doing. And I could see people making changes within the practices because they actually were wanting to do it because someone was taking the time to explain why. And I could see a shift in our offices, which was really cool. ⁓

Brett Allen (05:15) Hmm.

Joyce (05:31) So yeah, that’s a bit about me and what I do. So now fast forward to 2025 and my mom since retired, I’ve taken over the company and that’s what I’m doing now is explaining why.

Brett Allen (05:33) That’s awesome.

Yeah.

Yeah, before I met you, I didn’t realize there was this whole world in dentistry of compliance and like regulation and cleanliness and infection control, all of this stuff that, mean, obviously that’s there, but I just didn’t realize how big of a thing it was. and also from talking with you and some others, how much of a problem it is, like how, how many practices are not in compliant. I even heard dentists not using gloves on patients. I’m like, what?

Joyce (06:12) Yeah. Yeah. So when I started practicing, that was when the gloves like gloves have only been required since like the early 80s. was right around the same time that HIV was identified, which was in 1981 was when it was originally like it was the late 70s when we started seeing cases of HIV, but nobody really knew what it was at that point. And so I think it was by 1983 that there was like a test for it, if I’m not mistaken.

Brett Allen (06:13) So.

Mm. Yeah.

Joyce (06:39) And it was right around that time when gloves started to become required. by the, when my mom started teaching, which was in 1988, was when gloves were ⁓ required. And she said she would go into offices and see like gloves hanging and sterilization. You were usable gloves.

Brett Allen (06:54) Reusable gloves.

Joyce (06:56) hanging in sterilization, or not reusable, sorry, they’re disposable gloves. They were supposed to be thrown away, but they were hanging in sterilization because people were reusing them, because there weren’t enough gloves.

Brett Allen (07:01) but they were reusing it.

Whoa. Yeah, I remember that was like a thing when COVID hit, there weren’t enough masks, Like the mask, the supply chain. Yeah, yeah, yeah, all of it.

Joyce (07:07) So they would wash them and wear them again.

There weren’t enough of anything. Share

your N95s with people. And so of course, yeah, but with the glove situation, which my mom said that people would take the gloves off and put them back on and fight out.

Brett Allen (07:27) my gosh. And you

as an expert in microbiology, you probably are just seeing all of the different problems with all of that, right?

Joyce (07:37) Yeah, it came in handy during COVID. can tell you that although, you know, even for myself with my background, we kind of joke at this point that we know nobody wants to talk about that. So I do my best to, you know, explain instead of saying any specific diseases when I teach, I mean, I do have to talk about certain diseases because it’s required, you know, like we have to cover both our pathogens and we go through what those are. But I really try to take the approach of like, going into ⁓

Brett Allen (07:46) Yeah.

Right.

Joyce (08:05) how to protect ourselves from like a blanket term instead of focusing on specific illnesses. We’re like aerosol, caddy block from like, if someone coughs on you and has an infectious disease, like what do you do? We’re not like, you know, people. So yeah, it’s a little crazy.

Brett Allen (08:15) Yeah. Yeah. Wow.

So let’s talk a little bit more about

that. what are some common infection control mistakes that are probably happening in most practices that either overlooked or don’t realize are happening?

Joyce (08:34) Yeah, well, I mean, we kind touched on one of them already, which is reusing single use items like gloves. Gloves are not really reused anymore. Everybody knows single use gloves. You know, you have to throw those out. But things like I see plastic and plant impression trays being reused all the time where people will spray them with like a tuberculosis disinfectant, hopefully, or they just wash it off and reuse it. Those are normally designed to be thrown away.

Brett Allen (08:40) ⁓ right.

Yeah.

Yeah.

⁓

Joyce (09:03) So in California, we have really strict requirements where it specifically says in our dental practice act that you have to follow the manufacturer’s guidance for reprocessing. ⁓ So you would have to go to the manufacturer’s instructions and it, whatever they say is what you’re supposed to do to like be able to reprocess that item. ⁓ But generally, if it’s going in the mouth, it can’t, if it’s not sterilized or put into a high level disinfectant like cold sterile.

it can’t be reused. ⁓ And that’s even if it survives, like going into the sterilizer, like the autoclave, that doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s sterile. And so surviving would mean like it doesn’t melt. Sometimes it may not melt, but if it hasn’t gone through testing to prove that it’s actually free of, you know, viruses, bacteria, spores, all those things that are infectious agents, it’s not actually guaranteed that it is sterilized. So

Brett Allen (09:34) Hmm. ⁓

Wow, interesting.

Interesting.

Joyce (10:02) The only way that you know that is if there’s been testing done by the manufacturer to guarantee that it’s sterilized.

Brett Allen (10:08) So that’s why they’re single use. It’s just like, hey, don’t. Because only the manufacturer can guarantee it. Interesting. Yeah. Wow. What are some other common mistakes?

Joyce (10:10) Yep. Yeah. Exactly. Yeah.

second.

Another one would be like wearing the same PPE. I actually went into an office. I was a patient in this office where the doctor, was right after COVID, was wearing the same mask the whole day. And you can tell, because it is like gross looking. And it wasn’t an M95, it was just a regular disposable mask. And it wasn’t because it didn’t have enough. was, like, you just didn’t change it.

Brett Allen (10:39) And so,

interesting. what, yeah, what’s the protocol there? How often should you change a mask? Is it between patients or is it?

Joyce (10:48) Yeah, that’s a great question.

Between patients is like the minimum. ⁓ But if you’re doing like a, you know, a procedure where if the mask becomes soiled or wet or things like that, you can actually look into like, there’s different types of masks, there’s different levels. ⁓ So the level three is like a surgical mask. And that one is the one that most people would be wearing anymore in dental offices. And then

Brett Allen (10:53) Wow.

Joyce (11:15) A step above that would be like the N95, which is technically a respirator. That type of respirator is the only one that would protect you if a patient has any kind of aerosol transmissible disease. So that of course is what most people were wearing during COVID and when there’s an outbreak. ⁓ But as far as like the frequency for changing a mask, most people, like the standard is between patients. That’s like for sure, you have to change your mask between patients.

Brett Allen (11:19) Mm-hmm.

Joyce (11:42) With aerosol transmissible diseases, like we have respiratory illness season or most people would call it flu season, ⁓ where there’s more illnesses transmitting like in the fall and things like that. Some people will wear masks, you know, kind of all the time. And that’s actually fine. You just want to make sure that you are least changing it between patients. Because when you’re breathing, the air that’s coming out of your lungs is moist, right? And that moisture is going to make it so that organisms can actually pass through the mask.

Brett Allen (11:49) Right.

Yeah.

Joyce (12:12) so it’s not protecting you anymore.

Brett Allen (12:12) they go.

⁓ interesting. So there’s a certain lifespan of each mask before it wears out.

Joyce (12:17) Exactly. the

rule of thumb generally is about 20 minutes, but it depends on the mask. Yeah. So if you’re doing like a really long procedure, like a surgical procedure or something like that, wearing a… Most people don’t change their masks during procedures, but just bearing that in mind. ⁓ The biggest risk is going to be if you’re doing an aerosol generating procedure where you’re using like a handpiece or something like that, that is going to create more… ⁓

Brett Allen (12:23) wow.

Joyce (12:45) know, things that you could breathe in. Or if you’re using a laser, that’s another time where there’s more like plume or potential infectious agents in the air. And really you’re supposed to wear an M95 with lasers, but again most people don’t.

Brett Allen (12:45) Thank

Wow.

What do you

think, is it mostly because of either lack of education on this topic or is it also because dentists just don’t really want to deal with the hassle of having to replace my mask every 20 minutes or whatever? know, yeah. The cost, yeah, the cost.

Joyce (13:13) It’s a combination. It’s cost. I mean, if you think about

cost for sure of having to provide all of that PPE for everybody, it’s not knowing how the diseases are transmitted. So understanding the why, why we’re doing this stuff is a big part of it. ⁓ And then, yeah, then just not like not knowing why not having access to the protective attire and then not really understanding ⁓ just that basic understanding of biology that I think is missing for a lot of people too.

Yeah.

Brett Allen (13:44) Yeah, maybe

the dentist is aware, but their team members aren’t educated on it, right? Because they’re not. ⁓ Higher Ed, like getting a degree in dentistry is a lot more involved than just having a dental assistant certification, right?

Joyce (13:48) in my life.

Everybody’s coming from a different background and there’s not like a standard for all of us to have a general understanding of what we’re being exposed to. Here in California, we just had a regulation passed where all everybody who’s going to work in the back has to take an eight hour infection control course. Even then though, there’s still going to be just like, you know, discrepancy in the type of education that they’re receiving because

Brett Allen (14:02) Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

wow.

Joyce (14:30) There’s some standard in what they need to learn and what they’re gaining information about, but they don’t have to go through dental assisting school. And a lot of people get on the job education and that type of thing too, which is fantastic because it increases the ability for people to gain access. the flip side of that is it’s really hard for us to have that general understanding of why do we have to do all of this?

Brett Allen (14:33) The method.

Hmm.

Joyce (14:58) A lot of it is just, it’s cumbersome, it’s annoying,

it’s frustrating. The mask doesn’t stay where it’s supposed to. ⁓ And so if we don’t know why, then it’s one of those things that doesn’t necessarily take priority. Yeah.

Brett Allen (15:14) Yeah, yeah.

So what’s, we talked about this before the show, what’s the biggest risk for disease transmission in dentistry? Is it the gloves? Is it the mask? Is it lack of, yeah.

Joyce (15:27) So yeah,

aside from like needle sticks and sharps injuries, ⁓ it would be aerosol generating procedures. Those are like gonna be the two biggest. Yeah, so like if you’re using a handpiece or the doctor is using a handpiece, that’s when we take saliva, blood, all of the things that are within the mouth and you’re aerosolizing it. And that’s why you have to wear a mask, protection.

Brett Allen (15:35) where there’s a plume of bacteria that’s flowing out.

Joyce (15:53) all that kind of stuff like a face shield or whatever you may be wearing when you’re doing those types of procedures. The other side would be ⁓ exposure to blood and bodily fluids. So that would be when you’re processing sharps. So needles, scalpels, ⁓ sutures, depending on the office, if it’s like a surgical practice or if they’re a general practice or even ortho, there’s like varying levels of what type of instruments they may be exposed to.

Brett Allen (16:06) Thank

Joyce (16:21) across the board, everybody deals with instruments, right? They’re going to all have sharp instruments that they’re dealing with when they’re processing. So they all have to be careful when they’re ⁓ in sterilization. And one of the big things that we see is nobody wears utility gloves. It’s very rare. I shouldn’t say nobody. That’s like an absolute. It’s rare that I see people wear utility gloves in sterilization. It’s pretty funny when we go in. I have another trainer, a couple of trainers who work with me, but

Brett Allen (16:27) Yeah, yeah. ⁓

Joyce (16:49) My other main trainer April who works with me when either of us go into offices, they’ll like hurry up and try to make sure that the utility gloves are around. Because they know we’re coming in and they don’t because they’re so cumbersome. They’re usually it’s kind of gross because they’re like sharing those gloves with a bunch of other people. if they know they’re not they’re supposed to be like we

Brett Allen (16:58) Nobody wants, so people don’t want to wear the gloves while they’re cleaning the instruments? Interesting. okay.

they’re not single use. They’re.

Joyce (17:17) they’re reusable and sometimes they depending on what gloves they have they’re like the thick utility like the the gloves you wear when you wash dishes. They’re hard to use. They’re thick. They’re cumbersome. It’s it’s tricky to like handle little tiny instruments and like it’s it’s tough so people don’t

Brett Allen (17:25) okay. Yeah, you… Yeah. ⁓

I would think also

you’re susceptible to getting poked through that as well, right? Yeah. Yeah.

Joyce (17:42) Right? Yeah, they’re not designed well. And because

it’s created this issue because it’s written into some states have regulations where like you actually have to use them. ⁓ And I do have auxiliaries who use them. know, I know, you know, several people, a lot of times people who teach infection control are very like adamant that they absolutely use them when they’re practicing. ⁓ Because again, they understand the purpose for it.

Brett Allen (18:05) Yeah.

Joyce (18:09) but the vast majority of people that I know don’t tend to. And the idea behind them is it’s supposed to have a thicker barrier. So if the needle goes through it or the sharps goes through it, it’s removing some of the bile burden or some of the germs, gross stuff that could get you sick before it punctures your skin. That’s the technical idea. Yeah.

Brett Allen (18:24) Right. That’s the idea. Interesting. I had a,

this isn’t related to cleaning sterilization process, but I had a dental friend who, this was years ago, this was like 12 years ago, 13 years ago. He’s a wisdom teeth specialist. So that’s all he does, wisdom teeth. Yeah. He had an HIV positive patient and during the procedure he accidentally stuck himself with an instrument.

And he was very nervous about potential, ⁓ you know, getting that, ⁓ contracting that. But fortunately he was okay with testing and everything. But yeah, this is a serious thing and ⁓ yeah, it’s a big deal. I didn’t realize how involved it is in the practice, like how encompassing it is and the different requirements that there are from state to state. Apparently…

Joyce (19:02) Yeah.

Brett Allen (19:22) Experts like yourself can help guide dentists through this and their teams. So let’s talk a little bit about your compliance process. You mentioned you have like these six things that dentists can do to be compliant.

Joyce (19:26) Mm-hmm.

Yeah, so mean, a lot of it’s what we’ve been talking about, which is making sure that everybody’s on the same page. And that comes from personalized training within your office. I see a lot of times that people do OSHA training at like a big convention or through their dental society or something like that. It’s not specific to their work site, which is actually what OSHA requires. it doesn’t have to be in their office necessarily, but they do have to have

Brett Allen (19:54) Okay.

in the off training.

Joyce (20:07) Training that’s that is specific to their work site and they have to have policies and procedures that are specific to their work site So making sure that they have that available What I have found works the best is by doing that training together as a team where it’s interactive with the instructor who’s knowledgeable about ⁓ You know what the requirements are and then can help them to create a plan of how to implement

those requirements within their practice in a way that actually works for them. so what we do, and there’s lots of people that do this, but what our job is is to figure out what are the requirements and then help to say, this is the stuff that’s most important. This is what you absolutely have to make sure you comply with. And then this is where there is not necessarily wiggle room, but like, ⁓ kind of.

Brett Allen (20:59) Creative liberty on how

it’s implemented.

Joyce (21:01) Yeah,

like this is what I like. For example, I watch stations. You have to have an eye wash station that is connected to a water source. You can’t use a little squeezy bottle things because if you look at the safety data sheets and this is all OSHA stuff. If you look at the safety data sheets for the chemicals that we’re using in our offices, ⁓ for example, like cabisai, which is the common disinfectant that offices are using in their operatories to disinfect. If you look at that.

a safety data sheet, if you get that chemical in your eyes, you have to flush your eyes for 15 minutes of continuous flow. And that’s to dilute it. So as the chemical is going towards the optic nerve, it’s going to dilute the damage that that chemical is causing. So you can’t do that with a little bottle that you’re squeezing. You have to have a water, an eye wash station that’s connected to a water source. So that would be an example of something that, you know, just

Brett Allen (21:56) to

training the whole team in the office, that’s number one.

Joyce (21:57) Thank you.

Yeah, I would say for sure. Yeah. And then along with that is making is having protocols that are specific to your office that go along with that training. So they go hand in hand together, which is we do that for our clients. We create not only site specific training, we actually do assessments of the office prior to training ⁓ where we walk through a bunch of questions and then we tailor the training to.

Brett Allen (22:04) Okay.

Okay.

Great.

Joyce (22:30) what they’re doing. And we don’t just focus on the negative. We’re not scary. I don’t work for OSHA or anything like that. My role and my goal is to be like, this is, you know, this is the stuff that’s going great. And here’s what we can do to help facilitate. So sometimes people will like try to buy a bunch of stuff before I come in and with no, no, that’s what I’m for. I have all those resources, like don’t buy everything. Before we come in, use my like connections to get the things that you need, because that’s what we do. You know, we

Brett Allen (22:33) Mm-hmm.

⁓ yeah.

And you probably have a lot

of the templated written protocols that you can just customize for the office. And so they don’t even have to worry about it. Yeah. Okay. So that’s, that’s number two written protocols. What’s the number?

Joyce (23:04) They don’t do anything. write all for them. Yeah. Yep. Number two.

The third one is that depending on the state, you may actually have this be required, but if it’s not required, it’s still super important. And that is to have a specific protocol for how you process your instruments and how you clean your operatories. And that means that it’s laid out in black and white for everybody. So it’s not just,

do what you normally do at your other offices or what you’ve always done, that it’s completely within the regulations within the state where you’re located, but it’s also following the guidelines from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, from whatever OSHA applies to, whether it’s federal or state, that it’s going through what those specific regulations are to make sure that you’re in compliance with all of that and that everybody’s on the same page.

So we provide this for clients, but just making sure if you don’t have somebody like me working with your office to make sure that you are writing up a specific protocol. And I’m talking like step-by-step how you break down the room, how you actually sterilize the instruments, like we collect, disassemble the sharps in the operatory. Then we take the tray into sterilization and then we put the instruments into the ultrasound, like that kind of situation.

Brett Allen (24:28) Hmm. So specific

to the practice, those control systems. you find when, once you have all this written stuff put together, I mean, it seems to me like it would be something that just gets tossed to the side and never referenced again. Right. Is that, so is there, is there a required, ⁓ cadence or something that a practice is supposed to review that with their team or is that a state by state thing or

Joyce (24:32) Mm-hmm. Yes.

Yeah.

That’s great question. So OSHA requires that you do training annually and then the different dental boards and different agencies will have varying requirements as well. ⁓ But basically a rule of thumb is there’s ongoing training that’s required by OSHA and then there’s also the big annual training where normally people will either go to a big study group or huge convention or something like that and get OSHA training.

because there’s not a clear delineation between OSHA and infection control. When in reality, they’re actually two separate things. OSHA training, OSHA is concerned about employee safety. Infection control is usually from their dental board and it’s looking at patient safety. So they’re two separate entities usually. That’s how we manage it in our company is making sure that there is some, the reason why it’s confusing is there’s a lot of crossover between

Brett Allen (25:39) Mm-hmm.

Joyce (25:51) what the requirements are, but there are two agencies that are looking at it from different perspectives. ⁓ So yeah, but for what I tend to say, at least for like our clients, you have to do training annually with that big class. ⁓ For us, it’s usually like three hours or four hours depending on, because we have state requirements as well. And then there’s the ongoing training, it depends on the size of your team.

Brett Allen (25:55) Got it. Got it.

Okay.

Joyce (26:18) but it can

be as frequently as once a month or quarterly, depending.

Brett Allen (26:23) Got it. So that’s okay. So train the team, write the protocols, strengthen those systems in your practice. What’s number four?

Joyce (26:32) ⁓

So staying informed without overwhelm, which would be things like having a way to get information that is reliable and credible. Working with an infection neutral educator can be a way to do that. It’s not just going on Facebook and Instagram and believing everything that you read. This is something we talked about when you and I met. ⁓ was a lot of how do you weed through all of the information that you come across to know what is

Brett Allen (26:54) Yeah, yeah.

Joyce (27:02) and what isn’t especially right now with how the CDC is not as reputable as it has been in the past. It is getting harder and harder to know what to believe, what to trust. ⁓ Yeah, so that’s where I’m really leaning into like my experience and encouraging offices to delegate this aspect of.

Brett Allen (27:15) Yeah.

Joyce (27:26) your office to a professional instead of trying to rely on somebody within the practice. ⁓ You guys need to be focusing on treating patients. That’s where what is the most important thing. And so when it comes to your infection control and compliance side of things, having somebody that can come in and take that off your plate so that you can stay focused on patient care is, I think, paramount. Yeah.

Brett Allen (27:52) Yeah, I imagine

your expertise and ⁓ specialization in this space is very, very helpful for practices. So, okay, so staying informed without being overwhelmed. What’s number five?

Joyce (28:02) Thank you.

So ⁓ having a way to organize all the documentation is really important. of requiring, know, varying agencies require different types of documentation. So for example, you have to keep records of like, spore testing, which is confirming that your sterilizer is working properly and then it’s killing the bacterial spores. So once a week, they have to put a little bacterial spore into the sterilizer and run the cycle. And then they usually will send it off to a lab.

They put that spore into a petri dish. They try to grow it to see if bacteria grow, if there’s a colony. And if nothing grows, then they pass that spore test. And that indicates that the sterilizer is getting hot enough that it penetrates that bacterial spore, that hard coat, and kills the bacteria that’s inside of it. And that happens once a week. They’re supposed to do that on all of their different sterilizers.

Brett Allen (28:54) Hmm.

Joyce (28:58) that they have in the office. So that’s one of the things that they’re supposed to be documenting. But there’s a bunch that I watched Jason I talked about earlier. They’re supposed to be testing that weekly. ⁓ They’re supposed to be keeping records at Sharpe’s disposal, a whole bunch of other things. So having a system in place that allows you to manage all of those documents, all that documentation, that includes, of course, all of those protocols, policies and procedures. OSHA requires that you have a plan in place of what you do if somebody gets a needle stick, like you were talking about your friend.

that got that needle stick from the patient that had HIV. There’s a whole protocol that OSHA requires that you have accessible so that when that happens, because it’s going to, you’re not scrambling and freaking out. You’re saying, ⁓ I know what I’m supposed to do. I follow this protocol right here. We go to this clinic. It’s based on doctor’s workers, comp insurance, et cetera, et cetera. So we provide as a digital format to organize that, having some way to organize all that paperwork.

Brett Allen (29:39) Yeah.

So when you say

Yeah, digitally makes sense. But do you have like, do you have like an app or something that they install or is it like easily accessible that way? Cause everybody’s got their phone or is it on laptop?

Joyce (30:00) the

Yeah,

it’s on their website at the moment. So they log into a portal on my website. And then I also provide a Google Drive folder that’s specific to their office. that’s where they can store their, like that’s where their OSHA protocols are stored that’s specific to their office. And then it’s also where they can access, like where they can upload their records and things like that. So everything is accessible specifically to them.

Brett Allen (30:20) that’s good.

Yeah.

Joyce (30:37) And then they have the link that they can share within their office as well so they can keep that like on their main computers because everybody now it’s very rare we have some offices that still have paper charts with the vast majority have Digital and everyone is using computers for scheduling and all that stuff So in my experience we try to make it so that they can manage most everything online now That’s what most people seem to want I still have some offices that have been with us for like 20 plus years that are not liking this change

Brett Allen (30:49) digital.

Right.

That’s good.

wow. wow. I would think that would be embraced, but I guess, old habits die hard, Okay, so what’s the final thing that practices can do, the number six?

Joyce (31:06) But most people seem to be pretty happy about it.

Yeah, there’s always some people that don’t want to do it, but… Right, exactly.

Yeah. So we’ve kind of alluded to it. It’s, it’s not trying to do it all yourself. think, you know, specializing in what makes sense for you, which you’re like, specialty is patient care is dentistry. And the reason that we started this company is because this compliance thing, it’s a whole, a whole other animal, right? It’s, it’s a beast. takes so much to stay on top of what all the regulations are.

Brett Allen (31:30) Yeah.

Yeah.

Joyce (31:52) I just last year had to write an entirely new class on workplace violence prevention because that was a regulation that went into effect. ⁓ We’re writing more classes and content all the time on new requirements and expanding our content all the time for education. I’m adding new courses to the compliance membership that I have ⁓ later this year because there’s a lot to it. So having somebody that can…

Brett Allen (32:05) Yeah.

There’s lot of change in it.

Joyce (32:20) take it on for you, delegate that. Knowing when to delegate and when to handle things in-house.

Brett Allen (32:22) Yeah.

Well, and this seems like just another thing, like, I mean, you don’t file your own tax returns. You trust a CPA to help with that because the updates in the tax code, you don’t just go to legal zoom for your, you know, protecting your practice from any kind of legal exposure. don’t, um, you know, you don’t DIY a lot of things in your practice. This seems like an area that you would want to trust a professional to help guide you that. So, so.

You’re that professional guys. If you need help with this, reach out to Joyce. Tell us more about how you work with practices and how they can get engaged with you. Sounds like you have like a membership type thing.

Joyce (33:09) We yeah, so we provide like in-person and on Zoom training. So depending on what offices prefer, we have the capability to do both options. ⁓ Like I mentioned, we do a assessment with the office to start with and usually that occurs like right before the training. And then we go through and do like a personalized training for them. And then we have a membership for a…

Like that portal is on our website and it has includes everything that I’ve talked about today, honestly, so it has all of the ⁓ trainings that are required it has So we do like ongoing training one of the things that I didn’t even mention was that like when you have a new employee What do you do when you have like for ongoing employees? We have We have ⁓ training modules where where there’s videos that they can watch And all the forms that are needed to document the training that they’ve occurred ⁓

Brett Allen (33:36) Hmm.

Onboarding someone, yeah.

Joyce (34:02) taken for OSHA requirements. So that’s what we provide. And then we also have CE ⁓ for workplace violence that’s required, for workplace violence prevention. Yeah, so we have that within the membership as well. ⁓ It’s required now in California, more states are starting to require that course, but we do offer CEs. We are nationally approved for the Academy of Dental Dentistry. So we are CE providers within California, with the Dental Board of California, but we also have

Brett Allen (34:26) Cool.

Joyce (34:30) national accreditation as well with AGD so we can offer CEs throughout the US. ⁓

Brett Allen (34:32) did.

Awesome. Well, yeah, you’re

certainly a wealth of knowledge on this. ⁓ Guys, you got to reach out to Joyce if you need help with this. Where should we send them? Just your website? Is that the best way for people to contact you?

Joyce (34:47) Yeah, my

website at dental ed inc.com or they can email me at contact at dental ed inc.com ⁓ or text me at 7609309401.

Brett Allen (34:55) Okay.

We’ll put all that in the show notes in case you’re driving. can reference that. Dentaledinc.com. And I love it when our people in the show give out their cell phone. It’s a great way to commute. It’s so easy. mean, text is the best way to communicate nowadays. Email gets, you know, it gets lost in the barrage of emails in our inboxes, but texting is so, it’s efficient. so, thank you for offering that.

Joyce (35:04) Yeah. Thank you so much.

Yeah.

this for sure.

Brett Allen (35:30) And Joyce has been an awesome time together. Thank you for coming on the show.

Joyce (35:35) Thank you so much, Fred. I really appreciate the opportunity to talk to everybody. Thank you.

Brett Allen (35:40) Yeah, until next time everybody have a great time and a great summer. This is the Marketing32 show signing off. Have a great summer.