08 Dec 2021

Equipment Hygiene: You know the risks. Why take them?

Choose equipment that optimises easy and effective hygiene processes

Your treatment unit is one of the most significant expenditures in the office, therefore you should feel entirely at ease with it. While aspects like ease of use, performance, precision, and ergonomics all play a role, one thing you won’t want to worry about right now is the chair’s cleanliness capability.

A good chair should make it as simple, comfortable, and safe as possible to administer treatment. The cleaning and hygiene processes in today’s top treatment units have been optimized for complete peace of mind.

With the current Coronavirus outbreak optimum hygiene is no longer just about adhering to the CQC’s exacting best-practice criteria, but also about creating and maintaining a safe working environment.

In addition to the new social distancing measures that we’ll all have to follow for a while, the greatest method to reduce the danger of infection is to follow regular and effective hygiene habits.

Infection control has always been crucial, and a well-designed dental unit should make it as simple as feasible. The design of a dental unit can enhance good hygiene and maintenance practices in a variety of ways, such as KaVo’s instrument rinsing function, which is in line with hygiene and infection control practices, or automated processes that eliminate any human error in dosing and save both nurses and dentists valuable time, and ensure the treatment unit’s long-term functional reliability.

Therefore, the main areas to consider when thinking about hygiene and maintenance include:

  • Ease of disinfection and sterilisation of any necessary parts of the unit
  • Availability of removable parts
  • Smooth surfaces, free of joints
  • Contact-free operating procedures thanks to foot control or no-touch functions (KaVo units have an optional multifunctional foot control so that you don’t have to touch your dental unit during treatment, which greatly reduced the risk of cross-contamination)
  • Automated permanent germ reduction (from integrated automated rinsing programs and high grade cleaning solutions)
  • Intensive disinfection cycles (which can be run at the touch of a button if they are integrated into the unit design)
  • Variable instrument rinsing functions (for first thing, post-treatment and end-of-the-day cleaning)
  • Hygienic hoses (which can ideally be rinsed through on an automated variable time cycle and using a manufacturer approved product such as Oxygenal 6 – a hydrogen peroxide which is reinforced by silver ions which is safe for patients and personnel yet highly effective)
  • Disinfection of the suction tubings and drainage (with manufacturer approved cleaning gel such as KaVo’s Dekaseptol, which has been designed to adhere to critical spots within suction tubes, rather than just pass straight through)
  • Hygienic filtration (cleaning of the filters with the approved products)
  • Units fitted with their own water filtration system (such as KaVo’s DVGW water block) that allow water from the mains to be filtered and supplied directly to the dental unit meaning you have an endless supply of filtered water and don’t need to keep changing bottles
  • Correct cleaning products that will not harm the unit but will Clean, Disinfect and Decontaminate the surfaces (wiping down with a manufacturer-approved Cavi™ wipe for example)
  • Use of disposable barrier sleeves on certain instruments

Cleaning your treatment unit covers five time slots:

  • In the morning
  • After each treatment
  • In the evening
  • Weekly intensive cleaning
  • Ad-hoc cleaning as required

It may be useful to have a guide to each of these printed and laminated for personnel to reference throughout the working day.

Article By: KaVo Blog

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