Being a woman at any age means contending with certain unique health risks. As a dental health care professional, you can help your female patients manage these risks by refamiliarizing yourself with the direct connections between a woman’s oral health and her overall health.
Now that the CDC aggregates and reports COVID-related hospitalizations instead of COVID transmissions, dental professionals could be at risk. By the time a dental practice is alerted to a COVID outbreak in their area, transmissions could already be at concerning levels.
Think back: When was the last time you updated your diagnostic instrumentation?
A diagnostic instrument’s useful lifespan can extend for years. There may be probes and explorers in use right now in some dental offices that performed exceptionally well over time but are truly no longer in optimal condition to advance efficient and vital dental diagnoses.
Routine sterilizer efficacy monitoring is a critical element of your practice’s infection prevention and control protocol. Steam sterilization is, of course, a routine part of instrument reprocessing, and it’s important to ensure your sterilizer is functioning properly for every load. As a result, there are certain steps you should be taking monthly, daily, and per each load to achieve sterility assurance.
Hand hygiene has always been a critical part of infection prevention in health care settings, and the experience of living and working through a pandemic has only underscored its importance. However, despite the extra attention on infection prevention, the CDC reports that, “on average healthcare providers clean their hands less than half of the times they should.”
Students at dental, dental hygiene, and dental assisting schools have very full plates. Whether in the classroom or in-clinic, there is a lot to learn in a relatively short amount of time. But one area where dental students sometimes get a break is in instrument reprocessing.
At this time last year, we were all collectively reeling from the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic and dealing with the confusion, uncertainty, and anxiety of managing a new virus. And, in the midst of an unprecedented shutdown that nearly ground dentistry to a complete halt, practices pivoted on the fly to implement new infection prevention and control procedures that would enable them to continue practicing safely.
By Marie T. Fluent, DDS
2020 was the year that gatherings and events went virtual, and – at least for the immediate foreseeable future – it looks like there’s more of the same this year. You are essential, and we’ve been continually looking for ways to adapt to this new reality to serve you.
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