Everything we use at our office on patients is either heat sterilized or disposable. In our office, all the doctor’s and hygienists’ instruments and handpieces are thoroughly cleaned in an ultrasonic cleaner before being placed in sealed sterilizer bags and placed in one of 2 autoclaves (hot steam sterilizers) and completely and totally sterilized. In addition, every other day our assistants run monitoring packets through the sterilizers which are analyzed by an independent service to be certain that the autoclaves are functioning properly to protect our patients and staff. Items which cannot be autoclaved are disposable. All surfaces in the treatment rooms are thoroughly disinfected with a hospital grade, EPA approved surface disinfectant and difficult to completely disinfect surfaces (such as headrests or electrical switches) are covered with plastic barriers which are changed between each patient. All of this is very time consuming (about 10 minutes added to each patient visit) and fairly expensive but is absolutely essential to keep our patients and staff safe and your dental treatment worry free!
Until next time,
Mark W Langberg, DDS, MAGD