In many of our trainings and talks with dental offices, the assumption is that when the dental assistant, dental hygienist, or the dentist sees the packet at the left......... it is sterile. This is quite common since the color has darkened at the arrows. Unfortunately, this is not a correct assumption!!!!With virtually all of our sterilizers in the dental office that utilize a combination of steam and pressure to effect the sterilization of our instruments...... only one of those parameters is measured with the color change on the packet or the tape. This most often is that the chemical changes color when the temperature has risen to the correct level and stayed at that heat level for the proper amount of time.
The true measure of the correct operation of the sterilizer is that of a spore test. There are multiple ways to measure this both in the dental office and outsourced to a separate testing facility. According the the CDC, they state the following under the recommendations for Sterilization:
6. Monitor sterilizers at least weekly by using a biological indicator with a matching control (i.e., biological indicator and control from same lot number) (IB)
Feel free to contact us at (888) 669-8846 ext 701 for any further information regarding this or other compliance issues.
