maxill's Dental Blog

Great organization is key in any workplace environment, and it greatly relies on having established systems. In a dental office, the daily schedule, whether paper printed or on a computer monitor, is a masterpiece creation that the entire dental office team relies on every day. Without proper dental scheduling, there are many ways that time can be wasted in a busy clinic. And when time is lost, revenue and morale take a hit too.

As a consumer standing in front of a well orchestrated display of oral care products, one word comes to mind; overwhelming! Added into the already overwhelming list of products is an entire line up of natural oral health care products. Marketing is aimed to have every product promise to deliver something wonderful. That may be the case, however, is that ‘something’ wonderful suited for your clients' needs? Is what your client is putting in their mouth good for them? Even if they are natural products?

There is a current and robust trend to embrace all-natural products from what we eat, what we put in and, on our bodies, and lately, what we use for oral hygiene home care. We, as consumers, assume that natural products are better for our health and the environment. The vast array of dental products on store shelves along with internet and television advertisements flood our patients with the latest and greatest products....

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.

Dental professionals know that patients that use tobacco products of any kind have a higher risk of oral health issues such as oral and throat cancers, chronic gum disease, tooth decay, tooth abrasion, stains, bad breath, dry mouth, impaired taste and smell, and mouth sores that do not heal.

The cost of operating a dental office is staggering, and one sizeable investment is in dental handpieces. Choosing and investing in quality dental burs and handpieces increases productivity, reliability and reduces chair time for patients, making dental treatment less stressful. Handpieces are compressed-air driven, use newer electric technology, or are battery-powered, as in cordless prophy handpieces. Proper maintenance and sterilization practices provide years of service and guarantee patient safety.

Before being an RDH, I was a CDA and then a CPDA for 4 years. I oversaw ordering burs, sterilizing burs, and storing them in bur blocks in an official bur drawer. These were the years where a loose unpackaged sterile burs in a bur block was acceptable in infection prevention and control.