Michelle Aubé (Simmonds), RDH

It is no secret that dental clinicians work hours upon hours under the armor of personal protective equipment. For educational facilities and some dental offices, the pandemic PPE layers were not new protocols. For others, it was a novel approach to the safe practice of dentistry.

Are all these layers still required post-pandemic? Why had educational facilities and some offices already expanded their PPE wardrobe before the pandemic?

As dental professionals, it is not new news that enamel falls prey to constant demineralization.  In the Enamel 101 of dentistry, we learned the fact that hydroxyapatite can be attacked by acids and break down if there is not a remineralization balance.  The ideal balance is to stop acid attacks period. 

Writing an IPAC Manual has its challenges. It's not as easy as it seems, as there are many factors to consider before you can call it complete. The following is a list of frequently asked questions, and responses from maxill's own dental educator extraordinaire, Michelle Aube-Simmonds, RDH.   

Should Leadership be Taught in Dental School Curriculums?

Absolutely!  The dentist running a practice must be the ‘scientist’ in dental sciences and deliver quality care. Also, the dentist has to be a ‘business’ savvy individual to ensure the practice’s financial health. What else does the dentist need to be … the team ‘coach’. 

It is either the dentist’s role or if the office has an office manager, it may fall upon the manager.  Nonetheless, it’s a reality that hand-in-hand with being a practice owner comes leadership.  So where does a practice owner ‘learn’ leadership? 

It would be fantastic along with DENT 3055 there would be a Leadership 101 course that teaches the practice owner how to navigate the various dynamics of a team to develop and strengthen that team. 

Does every office need a DUWL program?

This can be answered by the equipment the office has.  There are two types of water delivery systems in a dental office:  direct municipal and closed bottle systems. 

The direct municipal has no bottle and is only required to purge the DUWL on opening, closing, and between clients. 

However, a closed water system as per the MIFU of the manufacturer of the dental chair or bracket table with the attached bottle, states a program is required to include cleaning, disinfecting, and testing. 

At this point, a retrofit from municipal to closed is not mandated.  It is important to note that offices do not get confused with the word municipal … if the office uses tap water in their closed bottle system that is not considered m

July 1976 at the American Legion Convention at the Bellevue Stratford Hotel in Philadelphia, Legionnaires was named and identified as the cause of an outbreak of severe pneumonia with 200 cases and 29 deaths (3) (5).  The outbreak was linked to the inhalation of aerosolized contaminated water (3)(5).  A milder infection caused by the same type of Legionella bacteria is called Pontiac fever. Rewinding in time, in 1968 in Pontiac Michigan, Pontiac Fever was named and identified as an outbreak of influenza-like illness, identified by people who worked at & visited the city’s health department and had inhaled aerosols from contaminated water (3). Legionnaires' disease is an acute bacterial disease, causing death in 5% to 30% of cases (4). The Government of Canada’s Legionella site, states the following:

“Cases of Legionnaire’s disease may be difficult to detect because very few of the people exposed to the bacteria get infecte

Spring signifies a time of change where colors are plentiful, and every breath delivers fresh air. Dental professionals should use the energy of seasonal change for their own refueling and restructuring.

It goes without saying, dental offices are busy places and the day-to-day operations do not leave much time in anyone’s schedule to re-organize physical spaces in the office as well as the mental compartments of our process of care circuits when treating clients.

What does physical space re-organizing look like? This would be going around the office and removing ALL clutter. The best way to ‘SEE’ if your office and operatories look cluttered is to take a picture. Play an ‘eye-spy’ game with the picture. What do you see that should not be in the picture?

An Untidy Work Area Equates Uncleanliness

Risk Management in a Dental Office

In many provinces, the pivotal moment for IPAC was before the pandemic, in 2017, when public health units and regulatory bodies took a closer look at the practice of IPAC in dentistry to ensure compliance with ‘routine practice’.  Before the pandemic, many offices had already swept through their IPAC policies and made enhancements to strengthen their IPAC procedures, decreasing the risk level and satisfying the elements of routine practice.  Although in 2017 reading the fine print and deciphering through the grey areas of written standards seemed like a pain in the neck, I look back and say thank you, 2017, for shaking our IPAC world ahead of time. 

In this shake-up, dental professionals became more knowledgeable in the theory of IPAC and started initiating structure to IPAC.  Again, not that we did not follow IPAC prior, but we did

In the past few months, I have been asked by dental offices what type of training the person performing instrument reprocessing requires.

Regardless of geographical location, every dental office MUST have a policy in effect that specifies the requirements and frequencies of baseline and ongoing IPAC education and training, as well as a competency assessment of the employee in regard to instrument reprocessing and the equipment used for reprocessing.

What does this mean for new hires and existing employees?

First, it means when new hires come on board, having an existing team member, or the team member that is about to leave train the new hire no longer cuts it. Why?

Because it’s not enough.