A step-by-step support for professional hygiene management in your practice
Maintaining hygiene in a dental practice is essential, but it can be challenging.
That's where W&H AIMS comes to play. W&H AIMS workflow guides healthcare professionals through the seven reprocessing steps, and now also includes information on environmental infection prevention.
The comprehensive workflow provides practical recommendations, specific solutions, and further scientific knowledge for professional hygiene management to break the chain of infection effectively.
This commitment to infection control isn't just crucial for patient well-being but also vital for the health and safety of medical professionals. With W&H AIMS medical professionals can elevate their daily hygiene management practices to a professional level and thus provide the best possible care and protection for patients and themselves.
We know, you are always ensuring proper hygiene and maintenance in your daily work (in your practice) and thus the well-being of your patients and finally your own health.
Please contribute to your personal protection by using protective equipment:
wear mask, gloves, safety goggles and protective clothes;
wash your hands regularly using the surgical technique to treat all areas;
avoid shaking hands and hugging, give a smile instead;
use an appropriate hand sanitiser treatment of potentially infectious patients.
Skin and hand care, from cleansing and disinfection to moisturizing, is a daily challenge. It is important to allow the natural hydrolipidic film of the skin to reconstitute. When the skin is extremely dehydrated, it can crack and develop small cuts that expose us to an even greater risk of infection;
Always use products that are hygienically safe, gentle, suitable for frequent use and dermatologically tested;
Use occlusive dressings to protect non-intact skin;
Wear heavy-duty utility gloves during the whole reprocessing process;
Take special care when handling sharps and needles. Put them in an appropriate container right after use.
Protective clothing protects during all activities with a particular risk of infection.
Protective clothing is worn as reusable or disposable clothing in addition to practice clothing. For example, washable and disinfectable rubber aprons for pre-cleaning medical devices; or long-sleeved sterile scrubs, particularly suitable for the treatment of potentially infectious patients.
Practice clothing does not offer any special protection and must be changed daily or in case of visible dirt or contamination. Especially at treatments with aerosol containing pathogens, contamination occurs and the corresponding hygienic preparation is required.
This is where the universal applicability of class B sterilizers comes into play: put your scrubs into the Lisa sterilizer – program B-Universal 121 for porous loads – for blocking micro-organism!*
The chain of infection is the way of transmitting an infection from one host to another. Hosts can be humans, animals, but also other environmental components. The transfer can take place mutually.
The good news: the risks of infection in dental practices can be significantly reduced by strictly following the reprocessing process as well as personal hygiene and environment cleaning and disinfection protocol.
The common mechanisms of transmission in healthcare settings, including dental practice, are:
Direct transmission: e.g., direct contact with soil, inoculation into skin or mucosa, droplets
Indirect transmission: e.g., unclean hands and fingers, inoculation by contaminated instruments, sprays or splashes from e.g., dental aerosols, syringe, fomite born, airborne
The W&H AIMS Workflow focuses on interrupting the means of transmission via contaminated instruments and materials.
There are many norms around the reprocessing of medical devices. For a general overview please click here.
Please also keep yourself up to date regarding local guidelines and norms.
Protect yourself, your patients and the nature - by following some simple rules regarding waste management or water quality.
Healthy environment – healthy nature!
Save yourself, your patients and nature by
perfectly organised waste management
environmentally friendly water reprocessing systems
checking the environmental friendliness of your packaging material
technical services in regular intervals to extend the service life of your products
using automated solutions like thermal washer disinfectors and steam sterilizers for cleaning, disinfection and sterilization of heat-resistant items (please note the related instruction for use) as they are more effective and environmentally friendly.
Buying a product - what you should keep in mind in terms of infection prevention:
Quality management is essential. Working with validated products and processes enables to increase the safety in your dental office.
Ensure that all reusable medical devices you wish to buy can be decontaminated within the existing reprocessing process. Review the related instruction for use already before buying. If using a W&H product, please find the related instructions for use here.
Pay special attention to the certification of the product, which must correlate with ISO 17664, “Processing of health care products – Information to be provided by the medical device manufacturer for the processing of medical devices”. All W&H products are certified accordingly to ISO 17664.
Use or buy disposable items only if the full reprocessing process for reusable products is not guaranteed.
Make sure, reusable items obtain maintenance by official technical service on regular basis, following the related manufacturer’s guidelines.
As one of the world’s leading manufacturers of handpieces, turbines and contra-angles we know want to help extending their life span to a maximum. All of them are made of many different parts that work together in a precise, complex way. To guarantee that all parts work for a long time it is necessary to maintain and lubricate them carefully in regular intervals as well as using original spare-parts.
Units like our AssistinaTwin help to reduce the effort of maintenance and lubrication to a minimum. Thanks to innovative technology it cleans spray channels and lubricates all gear parts in record time.
Careful drying after cleaning and disinfection also helps reducing the risk of any corrosion.
And last but not least: Technical Services in regular intervals make sure that sustainability in terms of a long living product is given.
W&H ioDent® helps saving time for your patients by reducing organizational procedures like the paper documentation of your reprocessing process. Get connected!
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For a seamless and interactive online experience of our multimedia content (e.g. videos, maps), please accept the storage of the necessary cookies (YouTube, MovingImage - detailed information on these cookies can be found in the imprint/data protection) for marketing purposes.
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