Richmond Dental and Medical Exhibits Soft BiteBlock^® at ASA 2019

The Richmond Dental and Medical team recently joined thousands of exhibitors and attendees for the Annual Meeting of the American Society of Anesthesiologists (ASA), the world’s premier organization to promote the practice of anesthesiology and improve patient care.

The American Society of Anesthesiologists is an educational, research, and scientific association of physicians organized to raise the standards of the medical practice of anesthesiology and to improve patient care. The organization currently counts more than 52,000 members from the United States and many countries around the world.

As of 2014, the organization included more than 52,000 national and international members and has more than 100 full-time employees.

The ASA held its annual meeting on October 19-21 in Orlando, Florida. ASA holds its annual meeting in October to honor William Thomas Green Morton, a Massachusetts dentist who first demonstrated the use of inhaled ether as an anesthetic in October of 1946 at the Ether Dome of Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston. The ASA thus commemorates this event by showcasing the world’s largest anesthesia educational event each October.
The next Annual Meeting of the American Society of Anesthesiologists will take place next year in Washington, DC.

For ASA 2019, the Richmond team of Fran Eskew and Diana Roloff, CRNA exhibited the company’s Soft BiteBlock^®, a Joint Commission-compliant product used in operating rooms around the world. Developed over the last decade jointly by Richmond and Roloff, the Soft BiteBlock^® helps protect the airway device (endotracheal tube or laryngeal mask airway), teeth, and tongue during emergence from anesthesia. The Soft BiteBlock^®’s dense cylindrical shape allows for consistent compression performance when placed between a patient’s molars with the tongue positioned medially.

Eskew and Roloff featured all three sizes of the expanded Soft BiteBlock^®, which now features the original large size complemented by small and medium versions to fit a greater spectrum of patients. The product lineup also includes Joint Commission-compliant packaging. At the Richmond booth, the team welcomed dozens of CRNAs, anesthesiologists, and medical students to the event and demonstrated the Soft Biteblock^®’s effectiveness in combating damage to the teeth, tongue, and respiratory equipment common in post-surgical emergence.

“We’ve been hearing great feedback on the Soft BiteBlock^® from the community of anesthesia professionals,” said Roloff, who has practiced as a CRNA in her native North Dakota for more than 30 years. “The quality and performance of the product really stand out.”

“While damage to patient teeth and medical equipment is certainly prevalent, according to claims data, many institutions are starting to see the negative effects of foregoing bite blocks or using DIY cotton rolls,” added Eskew. “We recently engaged a new hospital customer after they determined that using proper equipment like bite blocks could have prevented an issue that arose during a common procedure.”

Are the effects of post-surgical emergence putting your patients and equipment at risk? Contact Richmond Dental and Medical today to learn more about the innovative Soft BiteBlock^®, developed with medical professionals to prevent anesthesia-related injuries.