You do not have the time in your schedule to meticulously go through every one of your dental instruments and simply scrubbing instruments is not recommended by the Australian Dental Association, so you are going to need something to give you that extra cleaning power.
Infection Control
The ADA has published guidelines for how dental practitioners should keep and sterilise their dental instruments. The proper processing of your equipment is paramount as your instruments come into contact with your patients’ soft tissues inside their mouths. If your tools are improperly cleaned, they can spread infectious microbes to other patients.
Personal Protective Equipment
You must take precautions not to spread any infectious contaminates that you may be carrying that could carry over to your equipment, or vice versa.
This includes wearing face masks and gloves when cleaning dental equipment. Make sure your gloves are puncture and chemical resistant and can be disinfected in a MELAG Autoclave.
Pre-clean
The ADA guidelines state that if there is any visible debris on your equipment after a procedure, then you must clean it by hand before putting it inside an autoclave for sterilisation. The ADA recommends high level chemical disinfectants for the cleaning solutions when manually cleaning dental equipment. Scrubbing your equipment is only meant to be used as a fallback. This is because it takes the most time and is the least effective cleaning method, on top of being a sharps risk.
Dry your instruments before placing them inside the steriliser. An autoclave will only dry moisture that is acquired via the sterilisation process. Wet instruments placed in an autoclave will come out wet after sterilisation.
Packaging wet equipment runs the risk of bacteria growth.
Carefully package your instruments
Your instruments must be packaged and wrapped before entering the MELAG Autoclave for sterilisation. Packaging should be sealed tight, whether using wraps or pouches to protect from air contamination when removed from the autoclave. Your choice of packaging must allow the sterilisation element to get through.
Your packaging must have the capacity to withstand the pressure and heat of steam sterilisation. The quality of your packaging should remain consistent across multiple sterilisations. To ensure that your sterilisation packaging is accomplishing these things, you add chemical indicators to the outside and inside of each package unit.
Practice proper autoclave etiquette
Sterilisation failures are caused when autoclaves are overloaded.
When equipment is too tightly inserted into an autoclave, each package generally does not come into contact with enough of the sterilisation element. Having an overloaded autoclave can also cause the steriliser to take too long to reach the right temperature for cleaning.
Examine the completed load after removing it from the autoclave. It is important to ensure your equipment requires no additional cleaning or another round through the autoclave.
MELAG Autoclave
In order to be effective at cleaning your dental equipment, you need a sterilisation autoclave. The MELAG Autoclave is a premium sterilisation device that can take care of your equipment maintenance effectively and safely. A standard model reports an operation time of 10-17 minutes depending on how large the equipment load is. A single sterilisation can handle up to 9 kg of instruments and other materials. The MELAG Autoclave is intuitive and easy to use with a sizable colour-touch display that allows an operation to be quick and conscience.
Conclusion
Cleaning your dental instruments is a vital process and should be done efficiently and effectively possible. That’s why you need the MELAG Autoclave.
If you are ready to upgrade to the advanced MELAG system, contact Melag Autoclave at (02) 8880 7813 or visit us online.
