Sep 22, 2021
THIS EPISODE COUNTS FOR CE! - but read the disclaimers it might not count for your state.
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Michelle and Andrew have invited Kimberly Grensavitch, MJ, BA, RDH, to the show today to discuss Instructions for Use (IFU) in the dental field. Kimberly is a skilled quality professional dedicated to Regulatory Compliance and Risk Management in the HealthCare industry with over 20 years clinical experience. She has a Bachelor's degree focused in Health/Health Care Administration/Management from Ottawa University-Wisconsin, and a Master’s degree in Jurisprudence focused in Health Care Law from Loyola University School of Law. Kimberly brings her expertise to the podcast today, delving into IFU and its importance in the dental industry.
Today’s episode explores the disparities that occur in various IFU for equipment and how this can be confusing for dental experts. Kimberly and our hosts discuss ways to audit your setup and how purchase from the same manufacturer can assist with IFU consistency. At various times in the episode, they discuss instances of IFU inconsistency and ways to keep up with the changes in IFU, and conclude with a call to action to improve standardization by enumerating steps that can be followed.
EPISODE HIGHLIGHTS:
Interview starts: 12:17
- Kimberly’s journey in the dental field
- How Instructions for Use (IFU)can be confusing for an end-user
- What are voluntary consensus standards?
- Auditing your setup for IFU
- Is it important to order setups from the same manufacturer for IFU consistency?
- How to keep up with changes in IFU
- Reprocessing your instruments
- A call to improve standardization
QUOTES:
“You have to follow the manufacturer's instructions. We have to have them readily available, so if we choose to bypass those and do our own thing, we assume the same liability that the manufacturer would.”
“If you're in a practice where you've got more than one brand, how do you keep that straight? How long would it take you to do new team member orientation?”
“You really do have to know every single piece of equipment so that you can be a team member and cross-trained properly.”
“You can't have 18 different instruments that are in one setup that then require five different ways of processing them. That is never going to work for a small practice.”
“We definitely want to do what's safe and make sure that our instruments are clean and disinfected and sterilized. So it becomes difficult if you don't have consistent manufacturer's instructions to be able to do that.”
LINKS:
A Tale of Two Hygienists Podcast
A Tale of Two Hygienists homepage