Infection Control and CDC Guidelines for Dental Settings
Standard precautions
Mississippi dental infection-control rules track CDC guidance for dental settings. Treat all blood and saliva as potentially infectious. Use hand hygiene before and after patient contact, gloves, masks, eye protection, and gowns when splash is likely. Sterilize critical and semi-critical instruments; use barriers on surfaces; handle sharps safely; and maintain waterline quality.
Practical application
- Clean and heat-sterilize instruments; monitor sterilizers.
- Do not use flash sterilization as a routine substitute for inventory.
- Follow post-exposure evaluation and prophylaxis protocols.
- Train staff and keep logs for audits.
Worked example
A hygienist wears gloves but answers the phone, touches a drawer, and returns to the patient without changing gloves. The reasoning: gloves are patient-specific PPE, not a substitute for hand hygiene. Contaminating the environment and then the patient violates standard precautions even if no blood is visible.
Traps
- Wearing the same gloves for multiple patients.
- Skipping eye protection during aerosol-generating procedures.
- Relying on visible cleanliness instead of sterilization.
- Ignoring waterline and suction maintenance.