One of the key things that every single dental practice has focused on is cleanliness, because your patients, staff, and the state dental boards all expect it. However, for as important as keeping a dental practice clean is, not a lot of people seem to focus on how to keep your dental practice clean.

If you are looking for a step-by-step guide to make sure that everyone can come into your dental practice and marvel at how clean every single surface is, then this is the correct article for you!

1. Follow Industry Guidelines

Much like places where food is served, dental practices have guidelines that they need to follow or they will be in trouble. The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), have disinfection guidelines for dental practices and you need to know these guidelines.

This includes handwashing and instrument sterilization before and after treating a patient, before or after donning gloves, and after barehanded touching of contaminated objects. Additionally, the use of protective personal equipment (PPE) can protect dental workers from infection and contact with infectious agents.

Make sure to have these guidelines posted in your dentist’s office and ensure that everyone on your staff obeys them. Keeping your practice clean often starts with keeping those inside of it clean, and having clean dentists and staff members can provide a lot of benefits.

2. Clean Your Waiting Area

A lot of dentists know to clean and disinfect their instruments and the surfaces inside of patient rooms after the dental treatment is done, but what about the waiting area? Not only will a clean waiting area prevent potential germs and infections from getting into the areas where the patients are, but it will also help give your patients a good feeling as they walk inside of your dentist’s office and wait to be served.

Make sure to clean your waiting area regularly and make sure that your carpets and drapes are free from dust and stains, wipe down tables, magazine racks, and especially any areas that are set aside for children. Since you are putting so much effort into cleaning your waiting area, make sure to keep it well organized as well because that will keep your patients happy.

3. Disinfect the Small Surfaces

Alright, so we’ve cleaned all the big areas, but what about taking that bottle of Biocleanse and then looking at the small surfaces? Surfaces like door knobs, the handles of drawers, light switches, and faucet handles? These surfaces can be touched dozens of times a day and will be contaminated quickly during the course of a day, and they need to be cleaned and disinfected as well. Clean these smaller surfaces on a regular basis, or cover them in removable barriers that can be replaced after each patient. 

4. Hire A Cleaning Service For A Monthly Deep Clean

You might disinfect, spray, scrub, and wipe down your office every few days or maybe even every single day, but sometimes that doesn’t get rid of everything. Whenever you want to make sure your dental practice is as clean as it physically can be, you need to do a deep clean. This is when you break out the fancy cleaning supplies and spend a few hours cleaning everything in sight. 

If you can’t spare the time to do this yourself, then you might want to hire a cleaning service to do all of this for you. A good cleaning service can come in monthly, with the right equipment and experience to clean your practice from top to bottom and remove every single trace of bacteria and any chance that anything could be infected.

5. Dust Everywhere You Can

Finally, dusting might seem like the most boring of the cleaning jobs, because dust is everywhere and always seems to gather no matter what you do. However, dust can also be a breeding ground for bacteria and other particles, and it can be an eyesore. So make dusting a part of your routine and clean up the dirty surfaces whenever you can. Everyone will thank you!

6. Make Cleaning A Part Of Your Routine

You don’t need to spend hours cleaning your dental practice to keep it clean but can instead take five to ten minutes every day to just do a few small cleaning tasks. Then cleaning won’t feel so overwhelming and you won’t be giving all of those nasty infections and bacteria time to build up on your surfaces.

Published by HOLR Magazine.