The role of maintenance and daily routine care and cleaning of all components of dental equipment, tools and systems is an important aspect of extending the life of all components. It is also critical for patient safety and to ensure all aspects of the equipment and routines in the practice meet the protocols set forth as the industry standards.
There are specific types of equipment in use that can be easy to overlook or perhaps fail to take the time to clean and inspect at the level of detail that is required. Any parts or components that make contact with the patient need to be carefully maintained, cleaned and sterilized.
The dental saliva ejector is a good example of this type of high usage device in the dental practice. This small device is used in most types of dental procedures to remove saliva, blood, rinse water and even debris from the mouth.
A dental saliva ejector uses lower pressure than a high volume evacuator and does not remove the liquid as fast or in the same high volume amounts. However, the lower pressure in the system can create a problem for backflow, which is why both correct usage, as well as complete cleaning of the system, is required.
Usage Considerations
One of the biggest issues is asking patients to close their lips around the tube to enhance the removal of the liquid. While this can work with HVE tools, it should not be used with the dental saliva ejector as this creates a lower pressure in the patient’s mouth than the system, allowing the liquid in the tube to reverse direction and create backflow.
Cleaning should be completed on a daily basis. Including the use of enzyme system cleaners in the morning and purging all liquid from the pump and system at the end of the day is required. Additional cleaning enzyme should be run through the system and suctioned out, cleaning all lines and system components.