The American Dental Safety Society (ADS), a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization formerly known as OSAP, today announced the creation of the ADS Institute for Dental Safety and Science.
The new organization will step up at a critical time and assume the responsibilities of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Division of Oral Health, which was formally abolished on April 1, as the primary national entity responsible for developing, updating, and disseminating dental infection control guidelines and best practices.
The new institute will be led by Eve Cuny, a longtime ADS Foundation board member who has decades of experience in infection control and patient safety in both the public and private sectors.
For decades, ADS has worked closely with the CDC Division of Oral Health to promote oral infection prevention and patient safety. Now, by collaborating with the public and private sectors, the institute will continue and strengthen this critical mission to ensure safe oral health care across the United States.
“We believe that everyone should have the right to visit a doctor safely without fear of getting sick during their care,” said Eve Cooney. “We must be resilient in this moment to ensure that providers continue to have access to evidence-based and best science-based oral health safety guidelines and tools.”
As the leading dental membership society in oral health, ADS has a 41-year history of preventing dental infections and keeping patients and providers safe. Its members include clinicians, researchers, educators, consultants, compliance officers, and policymakers.
Over the years, ADS has developed clear, consistent, science-based national guidelines and tools through practical work that has made a real difference in people’s lives.
For example, in Georgia and California, dozens of children developed severe systemic infections and required hospitalization for surgery due to improper dental equipment water pipes and substandard hygiene. ADS then issued a white paper clarifying the dental water pipe handling and testing procedures to provide guidance for dental clinics across the country. The CDC’s Healthcare Infection Control Practices Advisory Committee (HICPAC) also updated the relevant water pipe guidelines with reference to the white paper before it was revoked in May this year.
In addition, at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, ADS was invited by the American Dental Association (ADA) to hold an expert-led respiratory protection webinar for oral health workers. The relevant content was viewed more than 150,000 times, providing important guidance and timely resources for the safety of dental professionals across the country during the pandemic.
Looking ahead, the institute will soon appoint an advisory committee to oversee the update of the “Guidelines for Infection Control in Oral Health Care Settings”. The guidelines are the national industry standard for safe oral health care, and were last updated in 2003 by the CDC.
Long-term, the institute plans to undertake additional major initiatives, including creating educational content, developing risk assessment tools, providing training programs for state and local governments, exploring new approaches to guideline development, and taking a larger role in position paper writing.
“Our commitment is clear—the Dental Safety Association will lead the profession with purpose, integrity, and innovation to ensure that dental professionals across the country and around the world have the reliable infection control guidance they need to keep their patients and teams safe,” ADS Executive Director Michelle Lee emphasized at the annual meeting in June.
This initiative has been actively supported by more than 18 national association members in the oral health and public health fields. “Oral health is the cornerstone of overall well-being and a critical pillar of our nation’s health,” said Brett Kessler, DDS, president of the American Dental Association (ADA).
The new ADS Institute for Dental Safety and Science, with its evidence-based foundation and commitment to safety, will continue to support the industry’s efforts to provide safe, high-quality care to every community.
At a time when oral health is becoming more important than ever, the ADA congratulates ADS on this transformative step and remains committed to maintaining a culture of dental safety.”
Nicole Johnson, MPH, former deputy director of the CDC’s Division of Oral Health, also commented: “ADS is the nation’s greatest ally in promoting safe dental care.
It is undoubtedly the best choice to continue to oversee dental infection prevention and control guidelines to ensure that the recommendations are timely, scientifically based, understandable, and communicated to everyone who needs them.”