Infection Control

Knowing more information about choosing the right protective gown hopefully solves any dilemma about selection and usage. The required dental PPE lineup is full and highly influenced by the task. Remember to ‘pick the mask for the task’ and ‘go to town with the right gown!'

St. Thomas, Ontario – April 2022: maxill inc is excited to announce the new maxill Student IPAC Champion Award. This new award will recognize future leaders in dentistry and reward their growth and understanding of infection prevention and control (IPAC) with a financial contribution to their education.

Dental professionals spend numerous hours a day dental practices reprocessing dental instruments. We open the box of sterilization pouches, fill them with instruments and send them to the heat and pressure of our autoclaves. How much thought do we put into that little plastic and paper bag?

Sterilization process challenging is not a new concept. It’s important for any industry that operates a sterilizer to develop a thorough quality assurance sterilization monitoring program. Notice how I called it a sterilization monitoring program. Sterilization testing is a disjointed task in many dental offices because it is not viewed as its own system within IPAC.

The two most popular alcohols used as disinfectants are ethyl alcohol (or ethanol) and isopropyl alcohol .

While both show potent germicidal activity, they have different applications in dental/medical environments.

Let's review the similarities and differences between them and understand which one is better suited for your dental facility.

Infection control is an indispensable part of hospital environments and medical settings.

Regular disinfection ensures that working surfaces are kept clean, and potential pathogens like bacteria, viruses, and fungi are eliminated, thus reducing the risk of passing on contamination between patients and between patients and the clinic or hospital staff.

Several types of disinfectants are available in the market, each with a different active component in variable ratios and concentrations.

The choice of disinfectant depends on the spectrum of antimicrobial activity, access, safety factors, handling factors, contact time, and ease of use.

The names Isopropyl Alcohol (IPA) and Isopropanol are synonymous.

Dental offices are no strangers to the potential of having an unannounced IPAC Public Health inspection. Now dental offices can add the possibility of the Ministry of Labour randomly arriving to the dental practice to inspect the offices pandemic plan and compliance. The difference between the two inspections is Public Health is mandated to protect the public and the Ministry of Labour for the employee/worker safety. Every workplace must be free of hazards to the employee, this includes infection control with the SARS-COV-2 being an infectious hazard. The missions of both authorities do overlap in the end with the result being overall human safety.

A hand hygiene program is embedded within the contents of an office's IPAC Program and is often ill-defined. Dental offices may be performing hand hygiene tasks, have procured the necessary products and posted directions for proper hand hygiene, however, it goes much further than this.