The Coronavirus has been in the news for weeks now, and, unless you’ve been living under a rock, you know that the likelihood of it reaching the United States grows greater every day.
It is a “new” virus, in the sense that we as human beings have not developed an immunity towards it yet. It appears to be very contagious, but we are just now starting to understand how quickly and easily it is transmitted from person to person.
While some people are becoming quite ill from it, many people are fortunately experiencing more mild symptoms, and the mortality rate is very low.
As the number of infected people in many countries continues to rise, it is natural for all of us to be uneasy about how it might affect us personally.
I thought it might be a good time to discuss the steps we take in my office to ensure your safety, as well as our own.
The workhorse in any medical or dental office is the autoclave. This is what is used to sterilize all our instruments. It works by using a combination of high heat, steam and pressure over a set period of time, and is used many times throughout our work-day.
There are regular tests that we perform to make sure our autoclave is working properly. All the bags in which the instruments are placed have a colored dot at the top. Before sterilization, the color of the dot is pink. Afterwards, the color changes to brown. This assures us that the autoclave has reached optimum temperature and pressure during each cycle.
Here are pictures of the disposable bags in which all instruments to be used in the mouth are bagged for sterilizing. Note the pink dot on the bag that has not been run through the autoclave yet. Note the brown dot on the other bag that clearly shows that the bag has gone through the sterilization process.
In every cycle run of the autoclave, we also place a special monitoring strip. This also changes color after the sterilization process, and it is another way for us to ensure every instrument is sterile.
It may seem like overkill that we do all these tests, but it is important that we feel confident that we always feel that our equipment is working properly.
So, that is what we do behind the scenes. What do we do that you can see for yourself when you are in our office? Any surface that cannot be sterilized is disinfected with industrial grade surface disinfectants such as the ones shown in this photo. We wipe down all surfaces in the treatment room and the entire dental chair between patients with these disinfectants.
In this photo, you can see the disinfectant soaked towels covering equipment that cannot be sterilized. You will notice that some of our equipment is covered with clear plastic wrap that can be discarded between patients.
We use “
Universal Precautions” when treating EVERY patient, which includes the use of disposable gloves and masks, among other things.
I share all of this to stress to you that, in these coming uncertain times, yours and our safety is paramount. I am very proud of the steps my staff and I take to protect our patients’ health, as well as our own.
