How do you make sure everything is clean?
In order to protect your child, our doctors, and staff, we constantly maintain the highest quality patient/staff protection systems. The Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations, the FDA, the National Center for Disease Control, the National Institute of Health, and the California OHSA set the Infection Control Standards for all health care facilities. Our operatory staff wears gloves, masks, outer protective clothing, and protective eyewear or shields as appropriate for their assigned tasks.
Much of our equipment such as prophy angles, air water syringe tips, saliva ejectors, and high speed suction tips etc are disposable. Our instruments are cleaned in an ultrasonic scrubbing system, packaged in individualized sterilization pouches, and then sterilized in a pressurized steam oven called an autoclave after each use. Our handpieces are thoroughly cleaned, packaged, and sterilized also in the autoclave after each use.
With the concern today about the spread of infectious diseases, our office wants you to know that your child's protection and safety is our top priority. By making you aware of the sterilization measures that our office routinely performs behind the scenes for your child's safety, we feel that you will be more than comfortable with our pediatric dental office.
Alcohol Based Hand Sanitizers
Good hand hygiene is one of the most important aspects of infection control that we use in our office. We have been using the most current technology for hand washing. Approved by the FDA and used in hospitals, hand cleansing/washing with alcohol based hand sanitizers has been shown to be as good as, if not superior to, traditional hand washing with soap and water. The alcohol based hand sanitizers are actually more effective than hand washing with soap and water in killing bacteria and viruses that cause disease as most people do not wash their hands long enough and/or use proper hand washing technique. We only buy those solutions that have at least 60% ethyl alcohol as the active ingredient, as clinical trials have shown those to be absolutely effective in killing 99.9% of germs. By rubbing our hands with the solution until dry, we can effectively control spread of bacteria and diseases to our patients.