Immediately Resolve Your Sterilization Issues
Proper instrument sterilization techniques are vital to keep your patients safe. Despite your best efforts, you may find yourself facing challenges of keeping clean instruments ready at a busy dental practice. To assist you and your patients, we’ve compiled some simple ways to enable you become more efficient during the sterilization process.
Clean instruments immediately after a procedure—even if you have sterilized instruments ready.
All instruments must be cleaned before they go into an autoclave and are sterilized. However, if you don’t clean them immediately, they’re likely to get dried-on debris that will be much harder to remove later. If your practice is too busy to clean the instruments in a timely fashion, one solution is to use an enzymatic ultrasonic solution or use an enzymatic spray gel. This loosens any biological matter, making instruments easier to clean later.
However, be aware that certain liquids should not be used in chemical sterilization because they can damage your instruments. Refer to your manufacturer’s information for specific guidelines.
Increase efficiency by making sure your instrument processing area is clearly and physically divided into sections.
The Centers for Disease Control is very clear that all practices should have these processing areas clearly separated. This should include areas for:
- Cleaning dental instruments
- Sterilizing dental instruments
- Preparing and packing the instruments
- Storing the instruments in post-steralization bags
If it’s not possible to have a physical separate space, make sure they are properly labeled and the employee processing the instruments has specific training on how to prevent cross contamination. (Centers for Disease Control.)
Periodically verify your sterilization cycles and use the sterilizer properly.
Spore tests or biologic indicators can help ensure that your sterilization cycles are functioning properly. The temperature and time should not be interrupted during the cycle. Don’t open the sterilizer door during the cycle, and don’t overload it.
Pack your tools correctly.
Don’t place too many instruments in a package. Also be sure that you’ve placed the packet either paper up, sideways or paper down depending upon the particular model you have. Also, use packaging material that’s appropriate for the method of sterilization.
Diatech offers a wide range of sterilization items
From cleaners and disinfectants to advanced ultrasonic cleaners, the Diatech promise of quality spans across our entire inventory. Contact us to learn more about how we can help your practice. With same-day shipping and excellent customer service, we stand behind every product.
At Diatech, we manufacture superior and innovative products for the dental industry… for the dentist, dental hygienist, dental assistant, orthodontist, endodontist and lab technician. We stand behind our promise of uncompromised quality and the best in competitive pricing.
