Infection control, sterilization, and public health requirements
Infection control, sterilization, and public health requirements
Georgia's infection-control expectations rest on standard precautions and the CDC framework, adopted through Board rule and enforced as a standard of care. Items test process details - what actually proves sterility, what must be written down - and the public-health duties that come with running a dental office.
Standard precautions
Treat every patient as potentially infectious. Hand hygiene before and after patient contact and after glove removal; gloves for all intraoral contact; masks, eye protection, and gowns when splash or spatter is anticipated; no food or drink in treatment areas; sharps handled with engineering controls and never recapped using two hands.
Reprocessing instruments
The sequence matters: transport in closed containers, clean and decontaminate (ultrasonic or washer-disinfector) before sterilization, inspect and package, then sterilize by steam autoclave, dry heat, or chemical vapor. Critical and semicritical items must be sterile; noncritical surfaces require an EPA-registered hospital disinfectant with a tuberculocidal claim or a product labeled for the target organism.
Monitoring
- Mechanical: time, temperature, and pressure recorded each cycle.
- Chemical: indicator strip or tape on every package.
- Biological: spore tests (Geobacillus stearothermophilus for steam) at least weekly and after installation, repair, or a failed test. Tape changing color shows the package was processed; it does not show the load is sterile. That distinction is the single most common exam trap.
Water lines and suction
Dental unit water lines must be treated and monitored to keep microbial counts within the recommended limit, with flushing between patients and shock treatment per the practice protocol. Suction lines are cleaned with an appropriate disinfectant on a defined schedule.
Public health duties
Offer hepatitis B vaccination to at-risk staff, maintain a written exposure-control plan, provide post-exposure evaluation and follow-up, keep training records, and handle waste safely. A licensee with an infectious condition follows the applicable CDC and Board guidance rather than improvising.
Worked example
The weekly spore test on the autoclave comes back positive on Friday. Correct response: stop using the unit for sterile items, hold and reprocess affected loads, service or re-challenge the autoclave, retest with biological indicators until it passes, and document each step. Running another cycle and judging by appearance fails, because only a biological indicator tests the kill.
Traps
- Substituting chemical indicators for biological monitoring.
- Sterilizing instruments that were never cleaned - bioburden defeats the cycle.
- Treating disinfection as equivalent to sterilization for semicritical items.
- Having no written exposure-control plan or training documentation.