608 Dental Office Safety

Central Instrument Processing Area

In dental health care settings, all instrument cleaning, disinfecting, and sterilizing should occur in a designated central processing area in order to more easily control quality and ensure safety.

The instrument processing area should be physically divided into the following sections:

1. Receiving, Cleaning, and Decontamination: This division is designed to contain contaminated items in an area designed specifically for cleaning, therefore preventing contamination of the clean areas where packaging, sterilization, and storage of sterile items occurs. Reusable contaminated instruments and devices are received, sorted, and cleaned in the cleaning area.
2. Preparation and Packaging: The packaging area is for inspecting, assembling, and packaging clean instruments in preparation for final processing.
3. Sterilization: The sterilization and storage areas contain the sterilizers and related supplies, as well as incubators for analyzing spore tests.
4. Storage: This area contains enclosed storage for sterile and disposable items.

When it is not possible to have physical separation of these areas, clearly labeling each area might be satisfactory if the personnel who process the instruments are trained in work practices to prevent contamination of clean areas.

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