We Care About Your Health
And Ours Too!
Our dental facility is proud of its reputation for addressing contemporary health issues. For many years, Dr. Carol Austin has maintained strict compliance with infection control and toxic waste management.
Infection Control
The following are measures we routinely follow for your protection as well as ours:
- We wear protective masks, gloves, eyeware, and gowns;
- We use only disposable needles, dental teeth-cleaning instruments, and patient treatment items;
- We sterilize all instruments and handpieces. All hard surfaces are disinfected in compliance with OSHA standards;
- Our patient suction is disinfected after each patient and our dental drills are fitted with check valves to prevent ‘suck back’ contamination;
- Distilled water is used in all dental unit water syringes and drills;
- We test our sterilization units every two weeks for their effectiveness;
- We update our knowledge about infection control and OSHA regulations at regularly scheduled meetings.
Toxic Waste Disposal
Our office complies with Minnesota's Infectious Waste Generator Management Plan. Dental offices do generate infectious waste as well as toxic waste. Some of the actions we take include:
- Placing all disposable items that have come in contact with patient’s blood in specially marked ‘biohazard bags’ for hazardous waste pick up;
- Placing all disposable needles, instruments, and glass in a non-entry specially marked ‘sharps container’ for hazardous waste pick up;
- Collecting and bagging disposable filters from our suction system before it enters the public sewer system;
- Recycling the ‘lead’ backings from X-ray film;
- Recycling the silver in X-ray film fixing solution;
- In addition to collecting and disposing of toxic waste solids, we have a collection system for toxic waste water. Only a few dental offices in Minnesota have installed this additional system;
- The fluorescent lighting is full spectrum with electronic ballast to greatly reduce flicker;
We believe infection control measures, infectious waste management, and
toxic waste
management makes our world safer, but also preserves the environment for
the next generation.
We take pride in providing comfortable, quality dental care.