Nine questions to ask before you buy a dental unit
Most unit comparisons focus on the specification sheet. These are the questions that predict how you will feel about the purchase in year five.
Waterlines are the maintenance nobody schedules
The part of a dental unit most likely to cause a problem is the part least likely to appear on a maintenance plan.
Chairs get serviced. Compressors get serviced. Waterlines get flushed when somebody remembers, which in a busy practice means less often than anyone would admit in an inspection.
Biofilm is a plumbing problem, not a hygiene failure
Narrow-bore tubing, warm water and long idle periods produce biofilm in any unit, in any practice, regardless of how carefully the room is cleaned. It is a consequence of the geometry. Treating it as a cleanliness issue leads to the wrong intervention.
Automatic beats diligent
Any protocol that depends on somebody performing a task at the end of a long clinical day will be performed inconsistently.
That is not a criticism of anyone’s diligence, it is a description of how days end. A unit with an automated disinfection cycle removes the variable rather than managing it.
What to actually do
- Run a documented disinfection cycle, ideally automated, on a fixed schedule.
- Flush lines for two minutes at the start of the day and twenty seconds between patients.
- Test rather than assume. Water testing is inexpensive and it is the only thing that turns a protocol into evidence.
- Keep the records. If you are ever asked, the protocol is worth nothing without them.
None of this is difficult. It is simply the maintenance that has no symptom until it has a serious one.
