COVID-19 Quality Assurance Assessments in Dental Clinics in 2020-2021

Objectives: To describe the common faults found during the COVID-19 QA assessments in dental clinics.
To compare the most common faults by QA assessment type (announced audits and unannounced audits).
Methods: Analyzing data of QA assessment results done from May 2020 to January 2021 by the dental health departments at regional health offices using the new COVID-19 QA abbreviated form.
Results: 330 QA assessments were performed: 210 announced audits (64%) and 120 unannounced audits (36%). Dental clinics that underwent the unannounced QA assessments met 78% of the requirements, while the clinics that were notified before the visit met 84%.
Results also showed that 50% of the clinics met full COVID-19 infection control requirements and 20% needed slight adjustments. 64% maintained a high standard of social distancing and COVID-19 precautions, while 19% of the clinics had some difficulties. As for the telephone triage and recording the results, 53% of the clinics fully fulfilled criteria and 17% partially followed the instructions.
Conclusions: Most dental clinics (74%) fully or partially fulfilled the requirements and successfully underwent QA assessments.
No significant rate of unacceptable findings was found in unannounced audits (chi-squared test). With the known disadvantages of unannounced audits, such as interfering with the clinic’s daily routine and patients’ appointment queues and creating a less pleasant environment for the staff and patients, there was no advantage for the unannounced QA assessments. Thus, they should be limited to specific cases and circumstances.