Risk Management and Health Regulations in Dental Clinics in Australia

Law and ethics
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Introduction
Australia safety law and health is being governed by specific regulations and frameworks which
cover all the fields from practice of work to the standards that should be met. The main purpose
of these laws and regulations is to ensure the safety and health of all the people in these
institutions. With this laws and regulations in place, it has led to the establishment of health and
safety legislation workplace in every territory or state that prescribes the specific obligation of
both employees and employers. Risk assessments should always be carried out for all the
situations and cases where there are potentials for blood exposure or even other potential
materials which are infectious and at some cases injury. Once the risk has been identified, its
management should follow specific hierarchy that is found in the control and regulations of work
health and safety. According to the common law, an injured member of staff may succeed on
suing for the damages incurred if there is a clear evidence that there was a negligence in the
employers part. In the criminal law, there are also specific charges for manslaughter in cases of
neglect which resulted in death ( Hoff et al, 2008).
Risk Management
Risk Identification
In the dental clinics, there are a lot of risks due to the overall exposure of staff to the hazards in
workplace which require highest attention and priority. The most common effect caused by this
hazards is the occupational skin disease which affects more than eighty percent of the dental staff
and even though it is not life threatening, it has become one of the greatest concern. With the
many hazards in the dental workplaces, it has led to the limitation of working hours among the
employees. Some of the controllable hazards in dental offices are cuts, skin penetration injuries,
assaults, fire, extreme cold and heat and the manual handling of people ( Villa & Abati, 2011).
The major concerns are hazards caused by machine and the exposure in the dental offices. These
hazards include kinetic energy from projectiles, thermal energy from splashes and spills,
radiation from X-rays, electrical and hazardous chemicals.
Risk Control
Among these hazards, the lowest risk usually come from sound which might damage the ears.
This is due to the improvement and use of modern equipment which have controlled noise levels.

This is one of the greatest achievement in risks management in these dental offices according to
the hearing protection and sound level regulation ( Armfield & Heaton, 2013)
To manage some of the risks such as cuts, impact injury, bumping, trips and spillage, the work
place should be well designed. Workplace should be designed in such a way that there are no or
minimal sharp cabinets and corners which may cause cuts and injury. Items and equipment
should be stored in areas that are easily accessible and heavy items should not be stored on high
shelves. Wet floors due to spillage should be attended to immediately by the dentists or
concerned staff. Floor management is also a concern as holes, cables and electrical switches
creates a risk of trip and falling thus causing injury and even destruction and lose of equipment’s.
The dental offices should have good and proper lighting with adequate ventilation. The rooms
should neither be too cold or too hot. Workplace should also have the correct number of people
to avoid congestion and limited accessibility. To minimize these risks, unsafe and substandard
practices such as working with inadequate training, use of wrong equipment and taking short
cuts should be avoided at all costs.
Management Failure
The main reason for the cause of the many accidents and incidents in the dental offices is
management failures. With proper management of risk in place, human error, unsafe practices
and conditions would be minimal or even non-existing. Identification and quick action on these
factors is the management concern and should be fast to identify and promptly address them. The
general hierarchy of risk management is first identifying the risk. Once the risk is identified it is
assessed to consider its exposure level and the possible consequences that may come out of it.
These factors are considered and the risk score is given, whether high, low or moderate so that its
control measure is given and applied immediately. With all these steps being followed carefully,
risk in the dental workplace would have been minimized and some being completely taken out.
Health Regulations
This procedures are however complex or difficult at times for dental practitioners managements
and owners to follow step by step and so the Australian government have come up with legal and
ethical regulations that must be followed ( Holtzman et al, 2014). These regulations put in place
concerns from sterilization, lighting, floors, ventilation, radiation, electricity and the working
areas. When all these procedures are followed a general walkthrough and inspection is important