We speak to Kreena Patel about Dyson HEPA Cool purifier and the impact it is having on her surgery, patients and her hay fever.
Can you please introduce yourself?
My name is Kreena Patel, I’m a specialist in endodontics. I work in south London and in Reading as well.
You’ve been using the Dyson HEPA Cool system for a couple of weeks now. What were your first impressions?
My impressions were, I really liked it. I’ve got another air purifier that it replaced when I got this one. I much prefer it compared to the old one that I had.
Why is that? What is it about the Dyson that you prefer?
Firstly, I really like the design of it. I find it sleek. It’s very narrow so it fits into the side of my surgery really neatly, and it looks really nice. When my patients come in, they quite like it.
I also like that it’s quieter, my old one was quite loud. This one is definitely a lot quieter.
My old unit was a standstill one, and this one swings from side to side. So I feel like it filters the air better to be honest, because of that feature.
How does the look and the style of the Dyson unit blend in with your surgery?
I think it would blend in with most surgeries to be honest because it’s just sleek within itself, but I really like that it’s narrow. My old one was a round one – I think most of them come in that design. It was quite bulky so I had to fit it in the corner of the surgery. I felt like It wasn’t as effective in the corner.
Whereas, because this one is so narrow, I can put it quite close to my chair so that it fits in nicely. So, I really like the design of it.
How easy is the system to use? Is it pretty intuitive?
Yes. I’m terrible at reading instructions. When I opened the box, I didn’t actually read the instructions, I literally just assembled the parts. It was super easy to put together. You can imagine me with IKEA furniture, I’m terrible with everything – but it was really easy. You just open the filters and then you pop them into the base of the unit.
With the maintenance it’s great, because I think you just need to replace the filters once a year, from what I’ve read. Even if it gets 12-hour use per day. It’s just a once-a-year thing. The app tells you when to replace them too. It’s idiot proof, which is what I quite like.
How long does it take to have a noticeable impact in the surgery?
Straightaway! I usually use it on an auto mode, so when it’s on, initially it’s on a slightly higher power mode, and then it goes really quiet. This is great because I have hay fever as well, so I feel like it takes out a lot of the allergens in the surgery. I notice that my hay fever improved since I’ve got it in the surgery.
I also like that, for example, if you’re cleaning the surfaces and you spray something on the surfaces, you’ll notice the Dyson ramps up immediately. It takes out a lot of the smells and chemicals within the surgery space. So, I really liked it.
Patients are making some comments about the Dyson unit. What are they saying and why is it important to have something like a Dyson unit for your patients?
You notice that for most patients, their eyes go to it. I’ve had a couple of patients who have commented and said it’s nice that you’ve got an air purification unit.
I think the thing with the Dyson is that it looks so sleek, that patients actually notice it because it’s swinging from side to side. I think generally that makes them feel a bit safer – that the surgery is doing everything they can to make sure that patients are safe in the environment that they are being treated in.
A few of them have said it looks nice, and a few of them have said it’s good that you’ve got that unit. So, I think it’s that safety in their minds.
Some don’t comment, but that they’ve seen it. I think it makes everyone feel a bit safer, especially with everything going on.
Does it make things more comfortable in the surgery, not just for the patients but for yourself as well?
Yes definitely. We’ve got an air con unit in the room itself, so we haven’t noticed it so much in terms of that side of things. Because it’s summer at the moment, so it’s quite warm in the surgery anyway, so we’ve had the air conditioning on.
I think in terms of clinician’s safety, you feel like, in dentistry, regardless of COVID, we use a lot of chemicals in the surgery. For me, I’ve constantly got hypochlorite out. It’s nice if you’re having the smell of that filtered away.
You also feel a lot safer just within your own working environment. I think that is also really nice.
I have noticed actually that my surgery used to smell like hypochlorite the whole day, because I use so much of it. Now, you walk back into my surgery after a treatment, and you don’t smell too much.
So, I do really like the fact that it’s filtering out and it’s a noticeable improvement on that side of things as well.
That’s great that it has such a quick impact on your surgery. What is the maintenance like, and cleaning it down, how easy is that?
I recently got the unit, so I’ve not had to maintain it at all at the moment. I’ve read the instructions and it’s not like other units where you have to hoover or wash the filters, normally on a monthly basis. For the Dyson unit you don’t have to do any of that. You just replace the unit filters once a year and that’s based on a 12-hour a day use.
We don’t have our unit on for that long for sure. So I think with us it would last even longer.
The process of replacing is quite easy. You don’t have to remember it because you’ve got an app that comes with the unit, it tells you when the filters need replacing.
I think that’s quite good from a cost-effective point of view. But also, it just makes things really easy to remember.
I really like the app actually. The unit comes with two remotes, one of them is kept with our unit and the other is kept so that I can increase the power if I need to. It also has an app system so you can see exactly what the unit has done in the day and how much filtration has actually happened.
Would you recommend the Dyson unit to other dentists?
Yes, I definitely would. I really like it, I also may buy one for my other practice where we’ve got another unit. So, I definitely recommend it.
Talk to a Dyson expert about supporting fallow time in your dental practice using Dyson Hepa Cool Formaldehyde.
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