Contaminated instruments and instrument cassettes that are not immediately placed into the ultrasonic cleaner or medical dishwasher must be placed into the holding drawer. When using ultrasonic cleaner, the lid must be securely placed. Rinse, dry, and visually inspect instruments for bioburden/debris.
holders and instruments trays are two transfer surfaces. For this reason, all anticipated treatment materials must be prepared and placed on the tray carried to the student’s operatory before seating their patient. If additional materials are needed, please ask the clinic assistant to obtain the needed materials. • Splash and splatter surfaces—are defined as operatory surfaces what are not “touch surfaces” or “transfer surfaces” or parts of items that enter the oral cavity and are referred to as “aerosol surfaces”. Examples of these surfaces include: the patient chair not covered by the chair cover which would include the chair base, arm rests, seat, light cover or plastic shield, countertop and sinks. An effective method for routinely managing operatory surface contamination between patients will be to use disposable blood/ saliva impermeable barriers. Students will use plastic film to shield surfaces from direct and indirect exposure in combination with chemical disinfection. Removal of blood, saliva, and microbes is accomplished by routinely changing surface covers between patients. While time- consuming, these cleaning and disinfection procedures between patients will minimize exposure to potentially harmful microbes. Students will only use approved chemical disinfectant agents that are EPA-registered hospital-level mycobacteria tuberculosis agents capable of killing both lipophilic and hydrophilic virus at the specified dilution. Use of any chemical killing agent not approved or given to the student will be unacceptable. When cleaning, the surface disinfectant solution is to be applied with a “wipe, discard, wipe” technique. Although it will be required to pre-clean surfaces with a disinfectant, it is recommended that all touch surfaces be disinfected before the patient is seated and after the patient is dismissed. If the student is seeing additional patients, thorough cleaning must take place and all plastic barriers must be changed.
Environmental Surface/Equipment Cleaning and Disinfecting Many blood and saliva-borne, disease- causing microorganisms such as, COVID virus, Hepatitis B virus, HIV virus, Herpes virus and Mycobacterium tuberculosis can remain viable for many hours or days when transferred from an infected person to environmental surfaces within dental operatories and other clinical areas. Subsequent contact with these contaminated surfaces can expose others and result in disease transmission. Therefore, adequate measures must be used in each clinical area to control possible transmission from contaminated surfaces. Identification of dental environmental surfaces include: • Touch surface—defined as surfaces that require contact and become potential cross-contamination points during dental procedures. Drawers, cabinets, hand-held x-ray unit, panoramic x-ray unit are all examples of touch surfaces. • Transfer surfaces—defined as surfaces contaminated by contact with instruments or other inanimate objects. Handpiece
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Hodges University Student Handbook
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