Prioritising Patient Safety: Disposables in Dentistry

To keep your patients safe, you must ensure everything in your dental practice is as clean as possible, or you risk exposing staff and patients to infection and cross-contamination.

But how sure are you that your dental practice is as hygienic as it can be? How long is it taking you to make sure everything is hygienic? Moreover, are you sure it actually is completely clean?

You have to ensure everything is as clean as possible, you cannot cut corners with hygiene in dentistry.

The answer: disposable dental products.

Losing Time, Wasting Money



Is the time in your practice being utilised properly?


Small tasks that need to be done between each patient add up and steal time, costing you money in the long run. The time it takes to clean equipment and handpieces in between each patient is time that adds up and any time not spent seeing patients is time that is costing you money.


Most decontamination routines contain multiple steps, often involving autoclaves, stealing dentists’ valuable time away from patients.


This isn’t the only way sterilisation is costing you money either.


Hidden costs of sterilisation:


    
    
  • Employee time spent cleaning and disinfecting supplies instead of seeing patients.
    • 
    
  • The cost of personnel training for proper maintenance, and the cost of the time spent training.
    • 
    
  • Ongoing repairs and replacements of products.
    • 
    
  • Risk of cross-contamination between patients can result in costly legal battles, fines from regulatory bodies, and insurance claims!
    • 



If it’s going to cost you so much, at least cleaning and sanitisation are a fool-proof solution, right? Wrong.
image
image
Research has found that sterilisation of non-disposable air/water syringes is not completely effective, and that even with sterilisation, there may be a lower risk of cross-infection from the use of disposable air/water syringe tips[1].


The only way to ensure that your instruments are completely clean is to use disposables.


Safely kept in sterile in the packaging, not only can you be sure that your instruments are clean, but disposables are also the perfect way to make this time back that would otherwise be lost to cleaning.


Save time and ensure the highest level of patient safety with these key products.
Disposables in a Greener World


Balancing the need for hygiene and infection control with environmental sustainability presents challenges in the dental industry. Disposable products are instrumental in upholding hygiene and infection control standards, and often a requirement to meet regulations. Unfortunately, single use disposables are not environmentally friendly, but they are still a necessity in dentistry.


At Henry Schein are we are keen to find and offer greener alternatives and increase our sustainable offering, without compromising on hygiene or safety.
[1]Inger M, Bennani V, Farella M, Bennani F, Cannon RD. Efficacy of air/water syringe tip sterilization. Aust Dent J. 2014 Mar;59(1):87-92. doi: 10.1111/adj.12146. Epub 2014 Feb 4. PMID: 24494727.
Copyright ® 2024 Henry Schein Ireland. All rights reserved.