IPAC Compliance
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June 24, 2022The transfer of these microorganisms must occur in a sequence; this sequence is what epidemiologists call the chain of infection. This chain of infection transmission can be broken by integrating controls or methods that mitigate the pathway of disease spread from person to person. This sequence must be in order for the disease to occur. The way to stop disease transmission is to interrupt this chain at any link. Knowledge of the exit and entry portals and transmission modes provides a basis for determining appropriate control measures.....
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June 17, 2022It's easy for us to open the box of gloves, put them on, do our job, and take them off without giving them a second thought? But when we think about it, are we making infection control mistakes with the gloves we use many times during the day?
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June 14, 2022Clients, patients and dental professionals all want to be safe at the dental practice. Keeping up with the high standards of IPAC and best practice will help keep your practice free from transmission and IPAC lapses. Dental professionals have access to research and best practice information related to safety but sometimes that isn’t the best avenue to follow in order to keep your practice at the highest standards of IPAC.
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May 05, 2022As oral health professionals, it's our responsibility to keep dental clinical contact surfaces clean and disinfected. At the same time, oral health professionals have a substantial investment in dental office equipment that they don't want to destroy with harsh chemicals. This is why it's important to look for cleaning and disinfecting products that meet or exceed IPAC standards and are also gentle enough to use on equipment. You can definitely have the best of both...
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maxill Announces ‘maxill Student IPAC Champion Award’ for Dental Hygiene Students and 2021 Recipient
April 13, 2022St. 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.
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March 29, 2022For dental offices that want to be water conscious, it can be hard to find the balance between following IPAC best practices and using less water. There are several things that dental offices can do to be more water conscious. Water conservation isn’t about being stingy or sacrificing patient safety. Water sustainability in dentistry is about finding an efficient way to use and reuse a limited and valuable resource and everyone can do their part.
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February 01, 2022
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?
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January 26, 2022
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.
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November 30, 2020
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.
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April 22, 2020
In the last article, I discussed the need to reflect on DUWL as part of the pre-planning to eventually return to practice once the coronavirus pandemic emergency state is lifted. I received many inquiries on product selection ranging from a regular maintenance program to the ‘oh no my DUWL biofilm is out of control’ action program.