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The Legislative Insider is published during the Legislative Session by the Georgia Dental Association. It contains updates on the activities of GDA's Government Affairs team as well as information about bills relevant to dentists and patient care.

The Medical Emergency Unprepared Dental Office - Prepare Your Office Today, Save Patient Lives Tomorrow (And Your Practice)

Oct 6, 2025
  • Medical emergencies can happen anywhere at any time.
  • Medical emergencies don’t schedule appointments!
  • Everyone deserves to go home.
  • No one should die in a dental office.
  • Spectacular resuscitation always comes from unspectacular preparation.

Background

The average response time for medical emergency services (EMS) to respond to a 911 call varies. Sources differ, but the US average is reported to be approximately 10.5 minutes, with considerable variance and the possibility that up to 10% of the calls may take more than 20 minutes. Rural and congested urban areas have the longest response times. These are actual response times were based on the primary EMS unit being available and not already responding to another call, necessitating an alternate squad being dispatched. Consequently, dental offices should be prepared to manage a medical crisis for up to 30 minutes without outside assistance. What is your Action Plan to sustain life for 30 minutes? The Six Links of Survival is a checklist of the educational needs and physical items necessary to fulfill the needs of a dental patient in that time period between the identification of a medical problem and the arrival of outside assistance.

Educational Initiatives

  1. Dentist Training
  2. Staff Training
  3. Mock Practice Drills

Physical Initiatives

  1. Written Medical Emergency Plan
  2. Emergency Medications
  3. Emergency Equipment

To learn more about the six links, please refer to the PDF at the end.

As you read this article you know exactly where you stand as far as a State of Readiness in your dental office. You are either a Medical Emergency Prepared OR Medical Emergency Unprepared dental office. There is NO in between. When the highly pressurized emergency occurs in your office (and it will) you will sink to the level of training that you have or have not done. If you and your staff don't have the knowledge to respond to an emergency, and you & your staff haven't done the office emergency drills to perfection, then you are going to sink to the level of your training - meaning that you could lose a patient's life. Are you ready to accept something like this? You need to make yourself as defensible as possible to your defense team in the event something catastrophic goes wrong in your office! If the standard of care is having the proper knowledge, having done the emergency drills, then failing to do these things is failing to meet the standard of care. That will be indefensible in the eyes of your state dental board, your malpractice carrier, state and federal regulators, attorneys, judges, and juries.

CHAOS

Critical
Handling of
Office
Anesthesia
Services

It all starts with a properly prepared dental office. If the office is ready, the dentist and staff are ready. Any compromise will lead to disastrous results when an unpredictable medical emergency occurs. Inadequate medical emergency planning, lack of protocols and ill-prepared office will lead to chaos.

 

Medical Emergency = Unresponsive Patient = Acute Extreme Stress

Impending doom, coupled with the high stakes environment and time urgency (that medical emergency in your office), overwhelms and short circuits the human mind, ultimately leading to situational paralysis also known as “Brain Freeze”

Thankfully, there are TWO ways to help combat this inherently human response to acute stress, perhaps the most critical of which are planning:

  • Cognitive aides
  • Emergency drills

 

Preparation Is the Key to Life!

Now, let’s look at the side of being unprepared. You opted not to thoroughly prepare your office therefore you and your staff are not ready.  This means your office has breaches in patient safety now. That event occurred which you always said, “this will never happen to me” in your office and if it does, “it won’t be that bad”. Many failures at many different levels due to a lack of preparedness occurred on many fronts within your office. A patient dies in your office which eventually leads to a wrongful death suit brought against you.  You will go through the proper channels with your malpractice company. You will answer a plethora of interrogatory questions followed by the Deposition. Then it could be Jury Trial or a very large settlement after that! 

How do you think you would fare under these questions plus so many more? Treat this matter seriously to prevent failures at many levels by preparing yourself and your team and reducing the potential for a catastrophic event which can affect your livelihood at so many levels. Remember, your patients already expect that you and your facility are fully prepared when they arrive there for their office visit. 

 

The Ten Deadly Failures

No one should die in a dental office, but this will continue since there are multiple failures when a medical emergency occurs:

  1. Failure or delay in calling 911
  2. Failure on a thorough pre-op evaluation
  3. Failure to recognize early signs
  4. Failure to perform properly during emergency management and treatment
  5. Failure to prepare before the crisis
  6. Failure to train staff on roles during a medical emergency
  7. Failure to recall protocols or life-saving steps
  8. Failure to monitor patients
  9. Failure to properly perform BLS
  10. Failure to ventilate

 

The Six P’s of Preparation

Integrate the six P’s of preparation for medical and sedation emergencies:

  1. Prevention
    • Complete and update medical histories for every patient.
  2. Personnel
    • Train and prepare staff for medical and sedation emergencies.
    • The dentist cannot handle emergencies alone.
  3. Products
    • Maintain essential equipment: glucometer, AED, emergency drug kit, airway equipment.
    • Required if providing sedation or anesthesia.
  4. Protocols
    • Develop and review a medical emergency plan monthly.
    • Review all potential emergencies.
  5. Practice
    • Stay current and train monthly.
    • Team practice must be consistent; training once a year is not enough.
  6. Pharmaceuticals
    • Keep in-date emergency medications accessible.
    • All staff should know where they are located.
    • Consider an automatic renewal program.

Take the six P’s of preparation serious, so your team can prevent the seventh P from happening, which is panic. Panic doesn’t do any good during a medical emergency except introduce CHAOS. When you panic, you’re going to forget simple life-saving skills on what to do. When you forget, you risk your patient’s life. Or to put it another way:

Know planning = no CHAOS

No planning = know CHAOS

 

Conclusion

No dental healthcare practitioner is able to determine when he or she will be faced with a medical emergency that will require the use of the six links. It is for that reason alone, dental healthcare practitioners should stay up to date on medical emergencies as well as the drugs and equipment used to treat them and maintain a professionally inspected dental office on a regular basis. Develop a regular protocol with your staff every month to rehearse various emergencies using your emergency drugs and equipment.

If you don't have the knowledge to respond to an emergency, and you haven't done the office emergency drills to perfection, then when the pressurized emergency happens for real (and it is not a question of if, but when), you are going to sink to the level of your training - meaning that you could lose a patient's life.  Are you ready to accept something like this? Treat this matter seriously to prevent failures at many levels by preparing yourself and your team and reducing the potential for a catastrophic event which can affect your livelihood at so many levels. YOU are in control of this matter, what will you do?

Get prepared. Stay prepared. Never be the unprepared.

 

Resources to Help You Get Prepared:

Healthfirst Emergency Drug Kits

Other Resources

Mock Drills: www.dentallearning.net

IMET The Six Links of Survival Reference Guide