CHC Planning Guide 2017 - 30

Guidance & Expertise from CHC Dental Leaders

Obsolete Spaces
* Chart Room: With implementation of EDR this room is no longer necessary. Existing Chart rooms can make
great CAMBRA rooms and space for a panorex, or additional operatories.
* Dark Room: With implementation of digital radiography, dark rooms are no longer necessary. An existing
dark room may be converted into storage or possibly a milling room for CAD/CAM.

How Big Should the Office Be?
Now that you have established your budget restrictions, your patient base, your plan to improve its oral health
status, and which rooms you need and how many, you can estimate the optimum clinic capacity necessary to
meet your goals.
There are two approaches you can use to determine clinic size requirements. One is to take the number of
planned operatories and multiply by 400 square feet for each operatory, or for a more limited space plan, multiply
the number of planned operatories by 250 square feet. While with expert help it is possible to design an office
to fit in a smaller square footage allowance, this can be quite an accurate formula to assess adequacy of a
proposed space.
The other precise alternative is to determine which spaces you will include (from the essential and non-essential
list), how large you want each space to be and add those together and multiply by 1.3 to allow for hallways,
unusable spaces and other design limitations. Create a table and list the spaces accordingly. To see example
office designs for community health offices, go to www.henryscheinofficedesign.com . You can also log in
there to the easy-to-use design module to assess and formulate your own design ideas. There are additional
workbooks available on the site.

Compliance
Many regulations - federal, state, local and program specific - govern the building and operation of a dental
office. A design that facilitates compliance to all of these standards creates a more positive work environment
that reduces risk and increases quality of care.

OSHA (Occupational Safety and Health Administration)
These are regulations that govern a safe work place. Perhaps the most important of these are the rules regarding
bloodborne pathogens. This information is available as of this writing at http://www.cdc.gov/oralhealth/
infectioncontrol/guidelines/index.htm which specifically discusses infection control principles as they relate to
dental settings. You can find addition information at https://www.osha.gov/needlesticks/needlefaq.html and
http://www.cdc.gov/oralhealth/infectioncontrol/.
Infection control encompasses both employee safety and patient protection. Let's discuss a few key
considerations related to the impact of infection control in your new office design. Acceptable employee
behaviors and work functions are very specifically defined.

http://www.henryscheinofficedesign.com http://www.cdc.gov/oralhealth/infectioncontrol/guidelines/index.htm http://www.cdc.gov/oralhealth/infectioncontrol/guidelines/index.htm https://www.osha.gov/needlesticks/needlefaq.html http://www.cdc.gov/oralhealth/infectioncontrol/

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of CHC Planning Guide 2017