In a dental office it is critical that practitioners do everything possible to prevent the spread of infection. That includes avoiding infections from patient to dentists
and/or nurses, or patient to patient through dental equipment. In our clinic, Dr Nalini Sutharsan has made infection control our top priority and we’re always looking for new and innovative ways to improve our procedures.
We want you to be confident that our instruments are always clean and that we make maximum use of disposable materials to eliminate contamination. There are two ways to keep a dental clinic free of contamination, and that’s through sterilization and disinfection. Although both methods are important, there’s a huge distinction between the two. Sterilization is the process we use to kill all microorganisms by heating or irradiating them. Irradiation is what destroys all bacteria, spores, and viruses. On the other hand, disinfection is how we destroy or render inert pathogenic organisms with topical agents.
Treatment rooms are methodically cleaned with a surface disinfectant between patients. All instruments are run through an ultrasonic scrubbing system and then placed in an autoclave unit for sterilization. An autoclave unit is essentially a large pressurized steam oven. The sterilized instruments are packaged so that they are not touched again until they are ready to be used for the next patient. When the instruments are finally opened they are only handled by gloved hands.
In addition, all of the Hand pieces used by the dentist such as drills are cleaned with surface disinfectant and sterilized in the autoclave. The supplies and instruments used for cleaning and polishing teeth are disposable and only get used once per patient. This is done to reassure our patients that we only use new supplies and instrumentation every time their teeth are cleaned. All used gloves, paper cups, and bids are discarded and fresh ones deployed for each patient.
Finally, occupied areas of the treatment room as well as stationary equipment such as the dental chair, table tops, floor, and sputum bowl are also disinfected by vigorously wiping them down with a topical agent. If you’re looking for a Markham dentist that puts the safety of patients first, then look no further.
It’s our hope that by educating our patients about our sterilization methods that they get a better understanding of how careful we are with their health, thereby making their visit to our clinic be more comfortable one.
The sterilization center is the center piece of a dental practice. Having a dental office with an aesthetically pleasing and ergonomically efficient sterilization work flow is essential. We have adopted the dental industry’s best practices for sterilization methods and infection control as well as invested in state of the art dental technology to carry out our procedures as well as keep our staff and our patients healthy and safe.