Instrument Sterilization (Patient Health and Safety)
To ensure our patients’ health and safety, we sterilize our instruments after every dental appointment. Here’s how we do it:
First, we wash our hands and put on protective gear which includes a gown, mask, goggles, and utility gloves. Then we dispose of any single –use items and bring all reusable instruments to the sterilization room. Here we pre-clean the instruments under running water, scrubbing and rinsing them of any debris. We then clean the instruments in an ultrasonic bath using high- frequency sound waves to generate millions of microscopic sanitizing bubbles. After cleaning, the tools are dried and packaged in paper wraps or heat resistant bags. Each package includes an indicator strip to confirm successful sterilization. The instrument package are placed in our Autoclave machine, which uses high pressure and high – temperature stream to sterilize instruments. Once the autoclave is finished, we remove the packages and check their indicator strips to confirm they’ve reached sterilization temperatures. The instruments remain in their sterilized packages until the next appointment that requires them. Equipment is also regularly monitored with spore testes, and detailed logs are kept to confirm all instruments have reached the recommended levels of sterilization. Proper instruments sterilization is one of the many things we do to ensure you have a safe and healthy dental appointments.