Infection Control Manual Draft: Guidelines for Dental Clinics

This report presents a draft of an infection control manual designed for oral healthcare settings. It outlines the purpose of the manual, which is to provide current infection control guidelines for employees, patients, and visitors, emphasizing the importance of professional responsibility in maintaining aseptic techniques. The manual defines the goals of infection control practices, including understanding routine practices, the chain of transmission, proper use of personal protective equipment, and additional precautions. It details infection prevention and control principles specific to dental clinics, such as patient assessment, equipment sterilization, waste disposal, and environmental cleaning. The report also classifies the routes of transmission, including contact, droplet, vehicle, airborne, and vector-borne, with a focus on standard precautions for dental practitioners like handwashing, PPE use, environmental cleanliness, and instrument sterilization. The report references key guidelines from organizations like Yale University, Interior Health, CDC, and the Royal College of Dental Surgeons, providing a comprehensive overview of infection control in a dental setting.

Infection Control Manual (Draft)

Introduction
The manual gives an account of the infection control practices and guidelines that need to be
adopted in an oral healthcare sector by the physicians, nurses, staff members, patients as well
as the visitors. This will restrict the spread of infection due to any unknown concept in
healthcare or negligence.
Purpose
The purpose for the preparation of this manual is to provide the current infection control and
guidelines to the employees, patients and visitors of the dental clinic. The Manual suggests
the best practice strategies to the oral healthcare providers in implementing the infection
prevention and control. It is not possible to dictate or enforce the people working in
healthcare sector to comply with the infection control procedures as it arises with a personal
sense of responsibility. Thus, the professional responsibility serves as the key to correct as
well as detect the breaches in the aseptic techniques and ensure total patient care (Yale
University, 2018).
Goals of infection control practices
 To understand the application and concepts of Routine Practices
 To understand the concept of chain of transmission
 To use, apply and remove the personal protective equipment appropriately
 To understand the correct time and reason for using the additional precautions
(Interior Health, 2016)
Infection Prevention and Control principles in a Dental Clinic
 Following the routine practices
 Patient assessment

 Application of the principles of cleaning, sterilization and storage of dental
equipments and instruments
 Overall care of the office setting
 Proper handling and disposal of wastes
 Use of the barrier techniques for prevention of infections
 Environmental cleaning (Royal College of Dental Surgeons, 2010)
Routes of transmission
The routes for transmission of the infection causing agents can be classified into four major
categories-
Transmission through contact
Through Direct contact: the infection that transmits through direct physical contact between
the infected person and the susceptible host while changing the dresses, giving baths and
other means.
Through indirect contact: when the infection from the infected person transmits to the
susceptible host through the means of an intermediate object such as clothing, instruments,
bed linens and such others.
Through droplet contact: This mode of transmission is usually significant in cases of
pulmonary infections when the pathogens pass from infected person to the susceptible host
through coughing, sneezing or talking.
Vehicle route
The pathogens transfer to the susceptible hosts through contaminated food, water, blood or
drugs.
Airborne transmission
It occurs through inhalation of the aerosols that contain infectious agents.

Vector-borne transmission
It occurs when an infected vector bites a susceptible host. This type of transmission is rare in
case of the oral/dental diseases (Kohn et al., 2003).
Standard Precautions for dental practitioners
 Handling the blood of all the patients as potentially infectious
 Washing hands before and after the specimen or patient contact
 Wearing personal protective equipments whole handling the dental patients
 Maintaining environmental cleanliness
 Processing all the patient care equipments and instruments correctly
 Wearing a mask before treating the patients to prevent any respiratory infections
 Following the alcohol-based sterilization procedures for the instruments (HIC
Manual, 2018)
References
HIC Manual (2018) Hospital Infection Control Manual for Small Healthcare Organizations.
[Online] Available from: http://www.nabh.co/Images/PDF/HIC_Guidebook.pdf [Accessed 16
May 2018].
Interior Health, 2016. Infection Prevention and Control. [Online] Available from:
https://www.interiorhealth.ca/AboutUs/QualityCare/IPCManual/Entire%20Infection
%20Control%20Manual.pdf [Accessed 17 May 2018].
Kohn, W.G. et al. (2003) Guidelines for Infection Control in Dental Health-Care Settings.
[Online] Available from: https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/rr5217a1.htm
[Accessed 17 May 2018].
Royal College of Dental Surgeons (2010) Infection Prevention and Control in the Dental
Office. [Online] Available from: http://www.rcdso.org/save.aspx?id=ab90c89d-dcf4-4a2c-
9a8a-bb91a316b6a0 [Accessed 17 May 2018].

Yale University (2018) Infection Control Manual. [Online] Available from:
https://ehs.yale.edu/sites/default/files/files/infection-control-policy.pdf [Accessed 17 May
2018].