Arkansas Administrative Code › Agency 038 - Board of Dental Examiners › Rule 038.00.07-001 - Article XV: Infection Control - dealing with infection control by deleting positive spore tests

Current through Register Vol. 49, No. 6, June, 2024
Article XV
INFECTION CONTROL
Arkansas Code §
								17-82-316(a)
			 -(c) and Arkansas Code §
								17-82-406
			 provide that the Arkansas State Board of Dental Examiners is vested with the
			 power to revoke or suspend for any period of time, the privilege of practicing
			 under any license issued in the State of Arkansas to any dentist, dental
			 hygienist or dental assistant if the licensee fails to maintain proper
			 standards of sanitation or fails to otherwise maintain adequate safeguards for
			 the health and safety of patients.
Public
			 Law 102-141 passed in the First Session of the
			 102nd Congress of the United States of America
			 approved October 28, 1991 provides that the states will establish guidelines to
			 apply to health professionals and will determine appropriate disciplinary and
			 other actions to ensure compliance with those guidelines in order to prevent
			 the transmission of human immunodeficiency virus and hepatitis B virus during
			 exposure-prone invasive procedures except for an emergency situation where the
			 patient's life or limb is in danger.
A. Definitions as used in this Rule:
1. Dental Health Care Personnel (DHCP)
Dental health-care personnel (DHCP) refers to all paid and unpaid
			 personnel in the dental health-care setting who might be occupationally exposed
			 to infectious materials, including body substances and contaminated supplies,
			 equipment, environmental surfaces, water, or air.
DHCP includes dentists, dental hygienists, dental assistants,
			 dental laboratory technicians (in-office and commercial), students and
			 trainees, contractual personnel, and other persons not directly involved in
			 patient care but potentially exposed to infectious agents (e.g.,
			 administrative, clerical, housekeeping, maintenance, or volunteer
			 personnel).
2. HIV
The human immunodeficiency virus, whether HIV-1 or HIV-2.
3. HBV
The Hepatitis B virus.
4. HCV
The Hepatitis C virus.
5. OPIM
Other potentially infectious materials. OPIM is a term that
			 refers to
1) bodily fluids including
		  semen, vaginal secretions, cerebrospinal fluid, synovial fluid, pleural fluid,
		  fluids including semen, vaginal secretions, cerebrospinal fluid, synovial
		  fluid, pleural fluid, pericardial fluid, peritoneal fluid, amniotic fluid,
		  saliva in dental procedures; any body fluid visibly contaminated with blood;
		  and all body fluids in situations where differentiating between body fluids is
		  difficult or impossible; and
2) any
		  unfixed tissue or organ (other than intact skin) from a human (living or
		  dead).
6. Exposure-prone
		  invasive procedure
Any surgical, diagnostic or therapeutic procedure involving
			 manual or instrumental contact with or entry into any blood, body fluids,
			 cavity, internal organ, subcutaneous tissue, mucous membrane or percutaneous
			 would of the human body in which there is a risk of contact between the blood
			 or OPIM of the DHCP and the blood or OPIM of the patient.
7. Standard precautions
The concept that all blood and OPIM should be treated as
			 infectious because patients with bloodborne infections can be asymptomatic or
			 unaware they are infected. Preventive practices used to reduce blood exposures,
			 particularly percutaneous exposures, include 1) careful handling of sharp
			 instruments; 2) use of rubber dams to minimize blood spattering; 3)
			 handwashing; and 4) use of personal protective barriers (e.g., gloves, masks,
			 protective eyewear, and gowns).
Standard precautions integrate and expand the elements of
			 universal precautions (the term used by the CDC prior to 1996) into a standard
			 of care designed to protect DHCP and patients from pathogens that can be spread
			 by blood or any other body fluid, excretion, or secretion. Standard precautions
			 apply to contact with 1) blood; 2) all body fluids, secretions, and excretions
			 (except sweat), regardless of whether they contain blood; 3) nonintact skin;
			 and 4) mucous membranes. Saliva has always been considered a potentially
			 infectious material in dental infection control; thus, no operational
			 difference exists in clinical dental practice between universal precautions and
			 standard precautions.
8.
		  Occupational exposure
Reasonably anticipated skin, eye, mucous membrane, or parenteral
			 contact with blood or OPIM that can result from the performance of an
			 employee's duties.
9.
		  Disinfection
Destruction of pathogenic and other kinds of microorganisms by
			 physical or chemical means. Disinfection is less lethal than sterilization,
			 because it destroys the majority of recognized pathogenic microorganisms, but
			 not necessarily all microbial forms (e.g., bacterial spores). Disinfection does
			 not ensure the degree of safety associated with sterilization processes.
10. Sterilization
Use of a physical or chemical procedure to destroy all
			 microorganisms including substantial numbers of resistant bacterial
			 spores.
11. Critical
		  instruments
Penetrates soft tissue, contacts bone, enters into or contacts
			 the bloodstream or other normally sterile tissue; includes surgical
			 instruments, periodontal scalers, scalpel blades, surgical dental burs.
12. Semicritical instruments
Contacts mucous membranes or nonintact skin; will not penetrate
			 soft tissue, contact bone, enter into or contact the bloodstream or other
			 normally sterile tissue; includes dental mouth mirror, amalgam condenser,
			 reusable dental impression trays.
13. Noncritical instruments
Contacts intact skin; includes radiograph head/cone, blood
			 pressure cuff, facebow, pulse oximeter.