Standard Precautions and Risk Management in Dental Assisting

Running head: DENTAL ASSISTING 1
Dental Assisting
Name
Institution

DENTAL ASSISTING 2
Dental Assisting
Standard precaution and how to put it into practice
Hand hygiene is one of the standard precaution and often infectious agents are often
transmitted by contact. This contact could be with a patient, the environment or the health
workers themselves. There are so many ways individuals are able to reduce the risks of the
agents. First, the five moments of health hygiene should be followed no matter how much little
time you got. Secondly, each facility has got policies on hand hygiene and every individual
should be well aware of the policy and be keen to follow it. Thirdly every situation has an
appropriate product that one should use according to the descriptions. Also, the policy of the
facility has some stated rules about cuts, abrasions, fingernails, jewelry and nail polish which
should be adhered to ("NHMRC – National Health and Medical Research Council", 2018).
Hand-care products often provided by an organization should be used because individuals may
not be able to work together with the hand-hygiene often provided. If anyone has a reaction to
hand-care and hand hygiene products respective personnel should be informed of immediate
action to be taken. Contacts with patients in the surrounding should be minimized especially the
physically. Every individual should also try in leading by example so that others would try to
emulate. To be well updated about hand hygiene, an individual should try as much as possible to
attend sessions with hand hygiene lessons. When alcohol-based products are not always
available in the hand-care stations then management should be informed of provision. These are
the several ways of reducing or preventing the risk ("NHMRC – National Health and Medical
Research Council", 2018).

DENTAL ASSISTING 3
Contact precaution
Infectious agents can either be transmitted either through direct or indirect contact. To
prevent this, several contact precautions should be employed. Transmission through a direct
contact is said to have occurred when the infectious agents have been transmitted from one to
another without the immediate person or object being contaminated. On the other hand, indirect
occurs when the immediate person or object is first infected, then to another person. to apply
contact precautions one should first apply the standard precautions, for example, hand hygiene
because it prevents contact transmission. The equipment in a healthcare should be properly
handled for example they can be sterilized after use or thrown for the safety of the non-infected
person ("NHMRC – National Health and Medical Research Council", 2018). Frequent
movement of patients from one place to another increases the chances of being infected too,
therefore, it should be minimized. This helps in reducing contaminations from the environment.
Infected areas should be properly closed. An appropriate personal protective equipment should
be used depending on the occasion. Patients in a healthcare should also be properly placed to
ensure effectiveness and keep them safe from the infectious agents. This may include precautions
like keeping the charts of the patients outside of the room and maintaining hand hygiene before
getting into the patient’s room ("NHMRC – National Health and Medical Research Council",
2018).
Risk management
In this kind of a situation, the risk can be managed. In this example of a case study, many
types of risks can be identified. If the health worker had used the appropriate PPE while handling
the patient, then there are high chances of exposure of the infectious agents. PPE should be used
to prevent the transmission of the infectious agents either through direct contact, indirect contact