Take Your Dental Practice Green: Tips from our 2023 Green Leader, Erika Pusillo, DAADOM
We are beyond excited to introduce you all to our 2023 Green Leader:
Erika Pusillo, DAADOM, Practice Optimizer at Spodak Dental Group in Delray Beach, Florida!
Creating an environmentally-friendly culture and mindset within your dental practice has an impact that reaches far beyond the physical walls of the office. Made possible by a grant from the Henry Schein Cares Foundation, AADOM created this award as part of its Green Leader Initiative, which aims to empower practice managers to reduce their practices’ environmental footprint and lead their teams in becoming part of dentistry’s green future.
Environmentally-friendly “green” tips for your dental practice
Throughout the year, we’ll update this post with Erika’s top tips for your dental practice, with the newest at the top:
Tip 1: Save the Trees!
Create reusable router cards. Many offices print router cards to organize and communicate to their teams regarding patient appointments, upcoming birthdays, doctor exams needed, balances due and more. Instead of printing the router cards each day, create a template and laminate it. Use a dry erase marker for notes. These make GREAT patient handoff forms from hygiene to treatment coordinators. Make sure there’s a spot for recommended treatment. Our docs collect these cards at the end of the day and use them to write their clinical notes.
Tip 2: Make Green simple!
The easier you make your green efforts the easier they are to follow through. For example, place recycling bins next to trash bins in the break room. When your team has a green option right next to the traditional choice, they can make better decisions without the added time. In this example, they will be more likely to recycle instead of throwing recycled goods away.
Tip 3: Be an example for your community.
We focus a lot of time educating our patients about dentistry. How many of them know how you are going green? Trust me, patients LOVE supporting businesses that support good causes. If you have a TV screen in the lobby, have a photo or two of your team planting trees, cleaning up a beach, recycling dental goods and more. Highlight or feature green products that you use or even give patients tips and tricks on how they can go green at home.
Tip 4: Select green dental products whenever possible.
- Woo Bamboo for biodegradable bamboo toothbrushes (yes they can be branded).
- Eco Products for compostable “plastic” cups. They’re derived from soybeans, how cool?
Tip 5: Buying in bulk saves you money and the planet!
Buy your products in bulk over single-use varieties. We review our supply and inventory at the start of each year. As a part of this strategy, we review how to save money (and time) while reducing waste.
When products that don’t have an expiration or have long shelf lives are bought in bulk, they come in large containers with smaller, refillable containers. Single-use supplies are convenient because you don’t have to sanitize after each use, but they add additional waste to our landfills. Bulk is better.
Tip 6: Upgrade your patient amenities and go green.
Who has a beverage station in your lobby? Hands raised. 🙋 Instead of providing bottled water, opt for a water refill station. Amazon has many elegant options for as low as $29. Upgrade the experience by adding fresh slices of lemon or cucumber for a truly refreshing drink. Be sure to provide compostable cups or reusable glasses to reduce plastic waste.
Meet AADOM’s 2023 Green Leader!
What is your definition of a Green Leader?
A Green leader is someone who recognizes that we have a choice to conserve and preserve our natural resources. “Green” leadership starts by choosing more environmentally friendly alternatives to supplies, equipment and technology that not only improves our patient’s experience but improves our efforts in saving our planet.
How does your team support your efforts?
Team support comes from having alignment around a set of core values. Our core values were created by our team to define who we are and why we do what we do (our purpose). Our values are what set us apart and this is why we “C.L.I.C” so well:
- Create a “WOW” experience for ourselves and our patients
- Lead with authenticity and integrity
- Inspire each other to achieve remarkable results
- Cultivate community by providing support and positive communication
Our values support our GREEN initiatives.
What is your favorite GREEN thing to do?
I’m passionate about problem solving! I love finding ways that we can minimize consumption and reduce waste. For example, for special occasions and celebrations we buy gifts for our team that have purpose like reusable water bottles. We have gifted iPads/Remarkable tablets for sustainable note writing, reducing the use of paper.
How does your work/green mindset carry over to your own home/life?
I enjoy being an example for my family, a good wife and a good mother just as I aspire to be a good example for my team. My family participates in the events our Practice hosts. It brings me joy to see my son realize that he can make a difference at 12 years old by picking up trash, planting trees, preserving spaces that support wildlife and by recycling.
As the 2023 Green Leader, what would you like to share with practice owners about how their leadership can impact the environmental impact at their practices?
Leadership has so many definitions and for me, I believe leading is another word for making a difference. Small changes lead to big results. My advice is to take 5 minutes at your next team meeting and ask for ideas on how your Practice can reduce more waste or recycle. Your team’s input leads to more excitement about the cause and ultimately creates more buy-in.
If internal changes to the way you do business aren’t possible, how could your Practice support an organization that supports the green initiative? For example, could you join a group to plant trees, build a community garden, clean up your beaches or local parks? Could you support a cause or organization that finds ways to reuse or utilize recycled goods to make new goods?
Small changes are done with small actions – choose ONE thing to implement and get started today! ????
About Erika
Erika Pusillo is the Practice Optimizer at Spodak Dental Group in Delray Beach, Florida. She began her dental career in 2009 as a dental assistant in sterilization. One of her favorite quotes by Tony Robbins, “the only impossible journey is the one you never begin,” inspired her to pursue larger, seemingly impossible dreams. Now she leads a team of 50 in a single location, multi-specialty, state-of-the-art practice. Erika has a passion for reading, learning and mentoring. She earned her DAADOM distinction in 2022 and has her sights set to speak at a future AADOM conference.
Erika has a giving heart. She coordinates and participates with several volunteer events with her team which include:
Community Greening Tree Planting
Beach Clean Up
Alzheimer’s and Breast Cancer 5k Walk/Run
Boynton Beach Angels Food Drive
Toys for Tots
Freedom Day USA (Free dental care to active military and their families)
Emergency Dental Day (Free emergency dentistry)
All Star Smiles (Free dentistry to underserved children)
Erika is a wife and mother to a twelve year old boy. She enjoys doing projects, cooking, reading and spending time with her family.
About the AADOM Green Leader Initiative:
The AADOM Green Leader Initiative empowers dental practice leaders to adopt greener practices in the dental office. The initiative aims to engage members to reduce the environmental impact of “business as usual” dentistry and to show how there are real bottom-line benefits to implementing specific changes that will result in reducing waste and using environmentally friendly products.
This initiative is made possible through a generous grant from the Henry Schein Cares Foundation.
Are you our next Green Leader?
Criteria to nominate the 2024 Green Leader:
- Use of Green Products in the practice
- Use of Green Practices
- Current AADOM member and Office Manager
- Must be present at the 2024 AADOM Conference
- Environmental mindset around your dental practice
- Sets example for his/her dental team
Nominations for our 2024 Green Leader are now open! Submit your nomination here before July 5, 2024.
