Keeping your equipment organized
Keeping your equipment organized is simple to accomplish and saves time for your surgical set-up. It also will reduce damage to equipment. With equipment well-organized, it takes less time to sharpen the equipment and it provides for easier and faster clean-up.
Use trays and/or cassettes to house your instruments and label the trays/cassettes to identify the kit (e.g., Extraction Kit). Include a picture of the equipment set-up for procedures so the staff can easily prepare for the procedure.
Finally, color-code the instruments to identify which kit they belong to by using dental tape or plastic rings. This will help facilitate putting the kits back together after cleaning and sharpening.
Treat your equipment with care
Your equipment is delicate and should be treated with care. You should always place the used equipment into their tray/cassette for cleaning and sterilization. Do not bunch the equipment together as that will damage and dull the instruments, and likely require replacement more frequently.
Dull, damaged instruments increase surgery time and patient trauma resulting in increased time, costs, slower healing, increased patient pain, operator fatigue and long-term health concerns for the operator such as carpal tunnel syndrome.
Clean the equipment one piece at a time and pre-soak the instruments so there is less cleaning necessary, making sure not to pile all the instruments on top of each other. Sterilize the clean instruments between patients, ideally using an autoclave. Remember cold sterilization requires 24 hours.
Why sharpen dental tools?
Maintaining sharp instruments creates a more efficient procedure and decreases the time required to perform a procedure. Also, sharp instruments reduce the effort required by the operator and provide for a less frustrating and more effective procedure, saving time and money in the long run.
Additionally, sharp instruments will provide less discomfort to the patient.
You can sharpen your own equipment (which I recommend) as it is quick and simple if properly performed. Alternatively, you can send your instruments out to be professionally sharpened, but this takes more time and costs more.
However, for certain pieces of equipment, such as rongeurs, you should send them out to be professionally sharpened as they are tricky to sharpen and can easily be irreparably damaged which then requires costly replacement.
