Dr. Sheilia Dunn
President & CEO of Quality America Inc.
www.quality-america.com
|
Ask the expert
In our Ask the Expert column, Dr. Sheila Dunn dishes out clear, concise and, sometimes, hilarious answers to those pesky customer questions that keep sales reps awake at night. Just think: The next time a customer asks you something like, "Who says we have to fix that gaping hole in our patient chair?" or "How come we have to use safety sharps?" You can come back with a witty repartee to put the lid on those concerns. So, come on ... Ask the Expert. E-mail your questions to AskTheExpert@MDSI.org.
Show me where it says ...
Q. I sell a lot of cold sterilants, such as Metricide, but most of my accounts won’t buy "check strips" to verify that the solution is working because of the extra expense. Considering some of the recent headlines about diseases being spread in dental settings, aren’t these things mandatory? Do you have a regulation I can cite?
A. People like this make you want to slice out your
eyeballs with a cheese grater, don’t they? Unfortunately, sterilization and disinfection protocols fall under infection control "Guidelines," which aren’t mandatory. So, it won’t do any good to paint the picture of
your account avoiding fines by adopting these
strips. However, it’s a fact that the manufacturer’s instructions clearly state to check the solutions
before each use, so you could emphasize the liability risk of not using them. You’re on your own figuring
out how to do this without getting tossed out on the street, but whenever I’m asked to "show where it says in the regulations that we have to do that," I ask the doubting Thomas to imagine sitting on the witness stand being drilled by a high-powered attorney who
is trying to convince a jury that dirty instruments killed his client:
Attorney: "Now, Dr. X., tell the jury how you knew that the instrument you used on my poor client ... whose life will never be the same (wipes a few tears from his eyes for effect) was clean?
Dentist: (acting annoyed) "Because the sterilizing solution hadn’t reached its expiration date."
Attorney: "But don’t the instructions say to test the solution before each soak?"
Dentist: "Instructions? Duh ..."
Attorney: "So, you cleaned my poor client’s dental instruments in a pool where festering, evil germs were free to breed with abandon....
Dentist: "No, it wasn’t like that"!
Attorney: "Then, isn’t it true that you can’t prove that the AIDS virus wasn’t crawling all over the items you put in my poor client’s mouth?"
Dentist: (would rather be slicing his eyeballs out with a cheese grater.)
Bogus alcohol hand sanitizers
Q. One of my accounts attended an OSHA seminar and is questioning whether or not the alcohol hand gels
I sell are OSHA compliant. What makes a product OSHA-compliant?
A. Alcohol hand sanitizers must contain at least 60 percent alcohol to be considered effective. Your customer probably read a recent warning from the CDC about ineffective hand gels found in some discount stores.
A quick trip down the aisles of your local MegaMart
will likely uncover hand sanitizers with alcohol concentrations as low as 40 percent. Keep this tip in mind for those pesky accounts that insist on buying these types of items at a local discount store instead of from you. You can spot ‘em right away: super-sized sticky, drippy pump bottles brimming with enough gel to set the whole place on fire.
Masks for working with hazardous chemicals
Q. A customer asked me to order facemasks for working with chemical disinfectants, such as glutaraldehyde. Will surgical masks do?
A. Surgical masks protect against blood and guts that typically fly around the dental chair area, but are not ideal to protect your customer’s face from the heartbreak of hazardous chemical exposure. If a person is performing tasks where they could be sprayed with a high level disinfectant, then they should wear either a plastic full face shield or chemical goggles, and a fluid resistant face mask. [FI]
|
