A Sterile Environment, Every Visit
Infection control isn’t something the team thinks about only during flu season or after a public-health scare. It’s a daily discipline built into every minute of the practice. Cville Dentist follows — and in many cases exceeds — the standards set by OSHA, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the American Dental Association (ADA), and the Virginia Board of Dentistry. Your entire team completes annual infection-control training, and protocols are audited regularly to make sure nothing slips.
Whether you’re a UVA student squeezing in a cleaning before finals, an Albemarle County parent bringing in three kids on the same afternoon, or someone scheduled for a complex implant procedure, you deserve the same confidence that the instruments, surfaces, and hands around you are completely clean.
How Your Instruments Get Sterilized
Every reusable instrument that touches your mouth is sterilized between visits in a multi-step process:
- Pre-soak and ultrasonic cleaning to remove debris and biofilm before sterilization.
- Sealed sterilization pouches with a chemical indicator strip that changes color when the correct temperature has been reached.
- Autoclave (steam under pressure) — our autoclaves run at 270°F under 15 psi, which kills every known bacterium, virus, fungus, and spore.
- Weekly spore testing verified by an independent lab. If any cycle fails, every instrument is re-sterilized and the autoclave is taken out of service until it passes again.
- Unopened pouches delivered chairside. Sterilized instrument pouches are opened in front of you at the start of your appointment, so you can see the seal was intact.
Personal Protective Equipment (PPE)
Your clinical team changes PPE between every patient — new gloves, a fresh mask, a disposable gown when needed, and protective eyewear. Dentists and hygienists wear high-filtration surgical masks for routine care and fitted N95-grade respirators for aerosol-generating procedures. Eye protection with side shields is standard for your clinical team and for you.
Barrier Protection and Surface Disinfection
Every high-touch surface in your operatory — chair controls, light handles, headrest, tray arm, keyboard — is covered with a disposable barrier for each patient and wiped down with a hospital-grade, EPA-registered disinfectant between visits. Rooms are fully reset and disinfected before the next patient is seated. It’s not a wipe-and-go.
Waterline Treatment
Dental units use water for cooling and rinsing, and untreated dental waterlines can harbor biofilm. Our waterlines are treated daily with EPA-approved antimicrobial tablets and tested regularly so bacterial counts stay well below the CDC's standard of 500 CFU/mL. Most of our lines run under 10 CFU/mL — cleaner than most municipal drinking water.
Hand Hygiene and Training
The single most important infection-control practice in any healthcare setting is hand hygiene. Every member of your Charlottesville team washes or sanitizes their hands before and after every patient contact, before gloving, after glove removal, and any time hands become visibly soiled. Your whole staff completes OSHA bloodborne-pathogen and infection-control continuing education every year, and new team members go through a full orientation before seeing a single patient.