We take safety very seriously at Artisan Dental. In preparing for your dental visit with us, we follow the CDC’s guidelines for infection control.
First, all contaminated items are removed from the operatory and taken to sterilization. This area is divided into contaminated and sterilized sections to eliminate any cross contamination. Next, we wipe down all surfaces in the operatory with a medical grade disinfectant. Anything that gets touched gets wiped down. Some obvious examples include counters, cabinets and instruments, but other less obvious examples include cabinet handles, keyboard, mouse, xray activation button and pens. The room is then reset for your visit with sterilized instruments and disposable barriers and the computer is set to HIPAA compliant settings to protect your privacy.
Universal precautions such as frequent hand washing, monitoring water quality and keeping accurate sterilization records assure that we have your health in mind. We use distilled water for our irrigation lines, disposable barriers on xray sensors, disposable suction tips and have keyboard covers on all keyboards. At the end of each day all suction lines are disinfected. In addition, each week we send test strips to the lab to assure that our sterilization equipment is working properly. We have a written infection-control program that all clinical staff follow and are trained in on a yearly basis.
All of our disinfection and sterilization processes are followed after each operatory has been used, giving you a clean and safe environment for your appointment.
For more information on the sterilization practices that we use feel free to learn more at:
https://www.cdc.gov/oralhealth/infectioncontrol/faq/sterilization_cleaning.htm
