The Dental Board of California oversees the Minimum Standards for Infection Control (Section 1005, Title 16 of the California Code of Regulations).
These regulations, protecting dental patients and office personnel from transmitted pathogens, cover the following concepts:
- Written Protocols – Maintaining Standard Operation Procedures for instrument processing, operatory cleaning, and injury management.
- Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) – Wearing face masks, face shields, eyewear, utility gloves, and PPE for handling chemicals.
- Hand Hygiene – Washing hands at the start and end of the day, washing contaminated/soiled hands with soap and water, and refraining from patient contact if hands have exudative lesions.
- Needle and Sharps Safety – Using the one-handed scoop technique and disposing of contaminated sharps in receptacles close to the point of use.
- Sterilization & Disinfection – Using products according to manufacturer instructions, distinguishing between non-, semi-, and critical instruments and corresponding levels of disinfection or sterilization required, sterilizing dental handpieces, discarding single-use items, spore testing sterilizers each week, dating instrument packs, and storing sterile items to prevent contamination.
- Irrigation – Ensuring that sterile irrigants and delivery systems are used for surgical procedures.
- Facilities – Protecting surfaces with disposable barriers, cleaning and disinfecting clinical contact surfaces using California EPA-registered intermediate-level germicides, ensuring dental unit waterlines are anti-retractive, purging lines before attaching devices, and flushing lines between patients.
- Laboratory Areas – Placing splash guards on lathes, using fresh pumice and sterile/new rag-wheels for each patient, sterilizing devices used to modify intraoral devices, disinfecting intraoral items (e.g., impressions) with an intermediate-level disinfectant before manipulating in the laboratory and returning to patients.
San Diego Healthcare Compliance is authorized by the Dental Board of California to present California Infection Control to your entire staff. Our course also covers best practices for infection prevention.
The Dental Board of California requires that licensed dental professionals take this course every two years. San Diego Healthcare Compliance is authorized to provide 2.0 CEU’s towards your license renewal.
Access full text of Section 1005. Minimum Standards for Infection Control.
Access the CDC’s Infection Prevention Checklist for Dental Settings.
Access OSAP (Organization for Safety, Asepsis and Prevention).
