There's a horror story in the Australian news at present in respect of a Sydney based dentist that was working with instruments that hadn't been properly sterilised over a long period of time - please see the clipping & link below:
Its always a good time to re-look at procedures and processes relating to the sterilisation of instruments and the use of your autoclave and ensure that you are compliant with the relevant Aus / NZ standards 4815 & 4187. These include:
- Having an autoclave that runs a fractionated vacuum cycle to extract air from the chamber and dry the instruments properly
- Having a documented process including cycle recording whereby each sterile cycle is numbered, dated and is successful / failed
- Regular validation and servicing of your autoclave to ensure that it works within the manufacturers parameters
Reprocessing reusable instruments is a procedure carried out daily by many Dentists, Medical Practices, Podiatrists and other instrument users. The process involves cleaning, packaging, loading, sterilisation & storage of instruments and it is important that this is documented & validated so that everyone has confidence in the integrity of the procedure.
For more information & advice on the sterilisation process, benchtop autoclaves and calibration / validation please do feel free to get in touch.
Phillip Lewis / [email protected]
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