Infection Control, Sterilization, and Safe Clinical Practice
Standard precautions
Treat every patient as potentially infectious. Minnesota expects compliance with CDC infection-control guidance for dental settings and with the OSHA bloodborne pathogens standard: a written exposure control plan, hepatitis B vaccination offered to at-risk staff, training, PPE, and post-exposure evaluation and prophylaxis. Hand hygiene precedes gloving; gloves do not replace handwashing; neither do they permit reuse between patients.
Instrument processing
Clean, package, sterilize, and store in a way that preserves sterility. Critical items (entering tissue or contacting bone) must be sterilized; semicritical items (contacting intact mucosa) are sterilized or receive high-level disinfection; noncritical surfaces need detergent or low-level disinfection. Handpieces must be sterilized between patients - wiping them down is not enough. Monitor each load with mechanical and chemical indicators, and run biological spore tests at the interval the CDC recommends (at least weekly) plus after repairs.
Water, sharps, and radiation
Flush and treat dental unit waterlines per manufacturer and CDC guidance; use high-volume evacuation and rubber dams. Recap sharps only with a device or one-handed technique, and place them immediately in rigid containers. Radiation safety follows ALARA: justified exposures, collimation, lead apron and thyroid shield, retake restraint, and dosimetry where required.
Traps
Calling a wipe-down "sterilization"; assuming a spore test every month is adequate; reusing single-use needles or impression trays; treating a positive spore test as no big deal - it requires removing the load from service and retesting.
Worked example: A scaler falls on the floor. It is a critical item; it is cleaned and sterilized before reuse - not sprayed and reused.