As a dental professional, it is essential to ensure that all instruments and materials used in the clinic are properly maintained. This is not only important for providing quality service, but also for avoiding costly repairs. To ensure the success of all dental treatments, preventive maintenance of dental equipment should be carried out regularly. Here are some tips for proper care and maintenance of basic dental hygiene instruments.
Cover Up and Protect Yourself
.The first and most important rule to follow is to cover up and protect yourself. It can be quite tedious to clean instruments as soon as you're done with them during a procedure, but it is essential for maintaining hygiene.
Use Metals That Form a Strong Oxide Layer
. The second technique consists of using metals that form a strong and adherent oxide layer on the surface. This is called passivation and it protects the metal surface from the environment.Unfortunately, the chromium oxide layer that protects stainless steel can break in the presence of chloride ions. Therefore, it is important to rinse cleaning products that contain chloride before sterilizing instruments. Residual cleaning chemicals can attack the protective film, so instruments can corrode, rust, stain and crack.
Checklist for Preventive Maintenance
. We've compiled a proven checklist for preventive maintenance of dental equipment for most, if not all, of the usual maintenance tasks and cleaning tasks in dental offices.This is also the most cost-effective way for your dental office to avoid costly dental equipment repair.
Other Dental Materials
. Other dental materials that are important to the dental hygienist, but that are often overlooked, are those that constitute dental instruments. Previous chapters have discussed dental materials such as gypsum, cements, and printing and restorative materials, all of which are commonly used in a dental office.Maintaining Equipment
. Many dental instruments and equipment are used daily in dentistry and dental implantology and the lack of maintenance and hygiene can reduce their optimal functionality, jeopardizing the patient's dental treatments or restorations.In addition to all the clinical responsibilities they have, from patient care to ordering supplies and administrative responsibilities, maintaining equipment is an important skill for dental assistants.
