Dental and medical sterilization equipment

In any industry that is concerned with the health and welfare of its consumer or user, correct handling, sterilization, and disinfection are always mandatory. Standard precautions should be upheld in order to ensure the safety and well-being of not only the consumers but also the workers themselves. For a dental practice, for instance, it is mandatory to sterilize their equipment and tools so that contamination and spread of diseases will be prevented, and this is ensured by using dental or medical sterilization equipment.

Sterilization and disinfection

The purpose of sterilization and disinfection procedures is to prevent transmission of microbes to dental and medical patients. In addition to sterilization and disinfection, other important measures to prevent transmission are part of universal standard precautions. These standard precautions should be used in interaction with all patients because it is unknown whether any particular patient may be the reservoir of transmissible bacteria, viruses, or other microbes.

Standard precautions include proper handwashing, respiratory hygiene and cough etiquette, safe injection practices, and proper disposal of needles and scalpels. Further, if exposure to body fluids or aerosols is likely, personal protective equipment or PPE such as masks or face shields, gloves, gowns, and protective eyewear should be used. The precautions taken should be specific for the task rather than for the particular patient.

In addition, there are transmission-based precautions that supplement the standard precautions and should be employed when the patient is infected (or suspected to be infected) with a highly transmissible organism. The three categories of transmission-based precautions are contact, droplet, and airborne. There are studies that expound on the specific information referable to these categories. You can try and look at is when you visit healthcare-associated infections (HAI) articles of the CDC.

Dental and medical sterilization equipment

Here are different dental and medical sterilization equipment that healthcare providers use to avoid contamination in the workplace.

Plasma gas sterilizer. Plasma sterilization utilizes low-temperature hydrogen peroxide gas plasma within a chamber to kill all living microorganisms on medical and dental equipment, including bacteria, spores, viruses and fungi. When vaporized hydrogen peroxide is added to the chamber, equipment within the enclosure becomes sterile.

Autoclave. An autoclave is a large, steel vessel or chamber that circulates steam at high temperature and pressure to sterilize various items, or as part of an industrial process. Industrial autoclave processes may include rubber vulcanization, composite parts processing, and structural adhesive bonding. Autoclaves are one of the most economical methods of sterilization, while still having a short cycle time.

Vaporized hydrogen peroxide sterilizer. Similarly to plasma sterilization, vaporized hydrogen peroxide (VHP) sterilizers also utilize hydrogen peroxide vapor, but plasma gas isn’t used within the process. VHP sterilizers remove humidity from an enclosure and hydrogen peroxide vapor is rapidly injected by a generator to reach an effective concentration to sterilize equipment. These vapors effectively remove micro-organisms that may be present, sterilizing the enclosure. The generator then reverses the process, breaking down the hydrogen peroxide vapor into environmentally friendly elements. This method has one of the lowest cycle times, resulting in the ability to sterilize equipment in high volume batches.