Known by our team colloquially as 'the area', it is one of the most important areas of any dental clinic, as the process of sterilisation of material is critical and fundamental in any medical environment. We are talking about the sterilisation area and today we want to tell you briefly and simply how it works.
The first thing to emphasise is its importance. As in any dental practice, the material used comes into contact with the patient, so a rigorous sterilisation process is necessary to ensure that it can be used again, not only for purely hygienic reasons, which is obviously also the case, especially in dentistry, but also for medical reasons, to avoid contagion between patients.
This requires that the area designated for sterilisation is a designated and dedicated sterilisation area. It should be separate from both the treatment and consultation areas (and obviously from those for the public or administrative staff) and designed in such a way as to minimise the risk of contamination.
What is the sterilisation process like?
At the end of an appointment, the material that has been used is isolated so that it does not come into contact with anything, thus avoiding cross-contamination between materials. It is taken to the sterilisation area and placed in the industrial dishwasher, where it begins its cycle. This special industrial dishwasher (SMEG) uses different chemical products specially designed to disinfect medical material and, in addition, it reaches high temperatures, which facilitates the most complete sanitisation of any type of biological residue on the instruments.
When this cycle is complete, specialised and trained personnel remove the instruments and dry them manually, one by one, following a rigorous hygiene protocol. During this process, they are bagged. And here comes the next step.
Bagging is used to protect the material and ensure its sterilisation during the autoclave operation process. The autoclave is a machine that allows the entry or generation of water vapour but restricts its exit, which allows it to obtain an internal pressure of 103 kPa above the atmospheric pressure registered outside, something that allows this water vapour to reach very high temperatures. For example, the one we use at Vélez & Lozano, which is common in dental clinics, reaches a temperature of no less than 134 degrees Celsius.
Thanks to technological advances, these bags are fitted with a special indicator that changes colour when the process has been carried out correctly, so that they can be put back into the autoclave if something has gone wrong, which is not at all common.
This is obviously something that not all materials can withstand, not even protected in special bags, due to the nature of the instruments themselves (e.g. because they are plastic and would melt). Such materials go through another process: first they are ultrasonically vibrated to remove debris (i.e. 'cleaned') and then they are immersed for a certain period of time in chemicals to ensure they are sterilised.
It should also be noted that other materials that can enter the autoclave but require a more thorough sanitisation process due to the nature of their use (e.g. material used in surgery) also undergo this vibration process.