Transform Your Practice with Autoclave WiFi Connectivity

You're listening to the Phil Klein Dental Podcast Thanks for joining us. I'm Dr. Phil Klein. We all use Wi-Fi every day. In addition to cell phones and TVs, many of our devices and appliances, often referred to as Internet of Things, rely on Wi-Fi to operate properly. When it comes to our dental practice, there are huge advantages to having Wi-Fi capabilities integrated into our sterilization equipment. To tell us more about it is our guest, Michelle Strange. Michelle is a registered dental hygienist with over 20 years of dental experience. Michelle, it's a pleasure to have you on the show. Thank you. I'm excited to be here with you. You know, we've talked a lot about on several podcasts that I've had in the past about Wi-Fi, and we are all familiar with Internet of Things. Like I mentioned in my introduction, so many devices that we have in our household, even our refrigerators are now, I bought a new refrigerator, it's all controlled by Wi-Fi. So in your experience as an infection control expert, how do you see Wi-Fi or Internet of Things, so to speak, being transformative in the dental space? Internet of Things, I think, will be transformative because it will offer really a variety of benefits that elevate multiple aspects of, like you mentioned already, our lives and our businesses, especially in that medical and dental environment. One of its primary advantages is its significant boost to efficiency, to performance, and in my strong opinion, the most crucial aspect, which is safety. It has the seamless integration of our devices, our sensors and our smart technologies. And it really allows us to automate and have real time monitoring and also that data driven decision making, which I think is going to kind of be revolutionizing how we interact in the dental and medical environment. Like you already mentioned, it's a part of our daily lives. Like we look at our IOT for. Things like our thermostats and our lighting systems, even just like I wear the aura ring and it's a wearable health tracker that monitors, you know, our well-being. So I think. As IoT continues to evolve, its influence will only grow because it's going to create this web of interconnected devices and systems. And so I feel like Internet of Things is just redefining how we live and how we work, promises a future of unparalleled convenience, really, to us, especially in health care where we're just so busy these days. Yeah. So specifically, you are kind of an expert in infection control. I know you do. some podcasting of your own. And there's no end to how much we could continue to keep up on the latest and greatest in infection control. You know, it's certainly very, very important and crucial to every dental practice, but it's also a burden to some extent. So the good news is that this Wi-Fi integration could really, as you mentioned, add some convenience and take off some of the load from the ICC and other staff members that are managing these devices, specifically autoclaves. Tell us from the standpoint of a dental practice where manufacturers are going with the integration of Wi-Fi into the technology of the actual equipment so that the dental office could manage and monitor the mechanical operation of that device. Well, you just gave such a great example, and that's, you know, autoclaves used for those sterilization processes. A connected autoclave brings many benefits that... revolutionize how medical professionals manage those sterilization tasks that you said are, sometimes they're a little overwhelming and you got to get to a patient and really. Safety is the foundation of our care, but sometimes it does get put to the sideline because we have our blinders on, like, get to the patient. And the clinician can remotely monitor and oversee the entire sterilization process with a connected autoclave. So with that real-time access to autoclave cycle data, the clinician or really anyone in charge of the sterilization task can watch the progress and promptly receive alerts when a cycle is completed. if any issues require that immediate attention that we need to go give it. And so this real-time monitoring ability is, I think, an invaluable feature because it streamlines our workflow, it saves us time, and it ensures efficiency in our busy practices. When we look at older autoclaves that demand that physical monitoring, I mean, let's be honest, like who has time for that? You know, I'm a practicing clinician still, and I can tell you today more than any of my other days in my 23 years of practice, I do not have time to monitor the autoclave. I need to because we really need to be doing this physical monitoring. And so integrating connectivity into autoclaves offers convenience and efficiency, as I mentioned, and as medical and dental professionals can now access that critical cycle data from anywhere without those physical visits to the autoclave itself. If I'm the ICC, I can monitor it and be like, hey, that failed. What's going on? What happened? You know. Can you explain to our audience an example comparing legacy equipment? And I shouldn't call it legacy because a lot of dental practices are still using it. We still have it, yeah. Right. Okay. Not super modern equipment. Let's put it that way. Let's be nice. How does the infection control person monitor the mechanical activity of that autoclave with that device versus one that would have Wi-Fi in it? how they get access to this information. Do they actually look at a screen on the actual autoclave or can they look at it on their phone through an app? If you could make a comparison on how the behavior of an infection control person would monitor both systems, one, an existing system that may not be that modern and the newer wifi systems. So I would say when I was working with older, like, or not so modern equipment, um, I, would have to like make sure that it reached its pressure so that's me looking at the display and you know there's so many types of autoclaves out there it could have been you know a little like a dial that i was just making sure it reached the temperature it reached the pressure and that the clock went for the entire time that it needed to go. You know, as things progressed, you'd have like that little digital display. And sometimes it would just give you a failure notice, but you didn't always know why it had failed. I definitely would love to talk about a little bit more about how like something like a Tuttenauer autoclave can almost predict some things about what's going on with your autoclave. But you know, it was really physical monitoring. okay, the autoclave, did it reach the pressure? Is it at this pressure for this amount of time? Did it reach the proper temperature? And, you know, I think if I said that most offices were doing that, it would be kind of a lie, you know, like not all of us are doing that. And that's because we genuinely don't have the time. you know, put stuff in our autoclave and then what? We go run and see a patient, right? We start setting up for the next patient. When we look at something like one that has that Wi-Fi integration in IoT, you know, there's multiple ways that you can gather that data. It could be, you could print it. you know, data directly from the autoclave in some situations. It could be transferred to your computer. It could be stored on a USB. It could even go to like an iPad or another type of tablet. So because they're all integrated on IoT and with Wi-Fi, we have multiple options. And so for somebody like myself who does try to have great record keeping as a infection control coordinator, I can then choose depending on how that office or how the office I'm in likes to keep things. If it's a book you know like the three ring binder i can print that out and put it right into it If we're digital, I could transfer that to, let's say, a Google Doc even or something that is going to have more digital record keeping for you. So infection control protocol is so important to adhere to. I mean, there's no question they even have unannounced inspections occasionally by CDC. Not very often, but it does occur. And it could even be a disgruntled employee that wants to get back at the office for some reason. Now, the documentation is always important. You have to have that documentation of what you're doing. So this Wi-Fi system that's integrated with the autoclave, that seems to me would streamline really detailed documentation showing that this autoclave was operating through that period of time where maybe somebody for some unknown reason came down with some infection that they may attribute to their visit to the office. But you could combat that or refute that by having this data available through this type of physical monitoring. Yeah. So like if you are, let's say. there is some kind of report that your office is not, you know, doing all the right things. Your state board might come and audit that area. And what there, if you didn't write it down, if it's not documented, you didn't do it. Now, right now, like with me doing physical monitoring on something that doesn't have. wifi or data coming from the autoclave itself, I can just write it down and say, I did it right. And I'd like to believe that we're all being dishonest creatures on this earth all the time, every day, but that's not always the case. And so the autoclave is actually giving you that data. So it's showing you that you That if something failed, it's going, hey, ding, and then you're going to fix that, right? Or that you are actually running, you're not stopping it on a dry cycle, right? Because that's something that happens quite often in practices. And I just had a conversation with a few clinicians about because they could stop the autoclave during that dry. cycle, that means your instruments are not sterile. And if we're doing that on a reoccurring basis throughout the day, then I, as the infection control coordinator need to have a kind of little meeting with the team and discuss the importance of letting our instruments go through that full cycle in order for them to be considered sterile. And that if somebody is stopping it, like who can we, who can I have a conversation with? Right. Maybe they just didn't know. And I just need to give them some more information, but I wouldn't know that. if I didn't have all the information and data coming from the autoclave itself. So having this internet connection from your autoclave to a service technician or even the company that sells you the autoclave gives you tremendous advantages. Can you talk about that for a second? Give me a world where troubleshooting can be done remotely by a technician with a view of the dashboard. which allows service dealers to monitor all of those machines in the field and kind of just preemptively troubleshoot those issues. Like that just, that feels fabulous to me. Yeah, that is a no-brainer. But yeah, there's definitely a way for multiple people to look at your dashboard online and really kind of, like I said, predict these issues. You know, a lot of times when autoclaves fail or even our spore tests, our biological monitors fail, it is oftentimes human. error. It's not always our autoclaves. So if there's something that I can even be like, okay, I see why that happened. It wasn't the person, it was a leaking gasket or something like that. Like they would be so lovely to get ahead of that. So regarding to now our autoclaves, there's a T-Edge model and I'm aware that there's something called T-Connect that is installed with those units when they're purchased by the dentist. Can you tell us about T-Connect? Yeah. So T-Connect is kind of almost like a service that is available now here in the U.S. free of charge. Anytime you buy one of those T -Edge autoclaves and the T-Edge is going to connect that series center. So it gives the ability to connect those devices in all of your sterilization center and then communicate on site. So remotely, like I was mentioning with the Wi-Fi. So if you have the high level disinfectant washer for instruments or if you have that biological indicator incubator. in the office. It can connect all of those devices, and it just comes with a T-Edge right now. And I just want to clarify, Michelle, and if you can elaborate, that would be great, that we still have to keep up with our chemical indicators, even with this technology that does the mechanical monitoring. Yeah, you're totally correct. And thank you for clarifying that. So there are three ways that we should be monitoring our sterilization practices. And that is going to be our physical or mechanical monitoring, which is kind of what we're doing with this Wi-Fi connectivity. And then we also have our chemical indicators and then our biological indicator, which is oftentimes called a spore test. And in our industry, we work with pouches typically that do have our class four indicators. kind of built into them. And then if we are doing wraps, then we would put one on the inside of it and use a class or type one indicator on the outside of it. That's typically our tape. Those are also very much needed because that is actually, in addition to our physical monitoring now with Wi-Fi connectivity, we're saying, yes, this met time temperature pressure. It's showing us it passed. And then when we pull our instruments out of the autoclave, we really should be checking those indicators at three contact points. So as soon as we pulled them out of the autoclave, did all of these things turn and were actually exposed to the variables needed for sterility? And then when we put them away, when we go to pull them out for patient care, we should be checking those indicators as well. And then before we actually open them for patient care, we should check again. So as we wrap up this podcast, Michelle, tell us your vision of the SteriCenter of the future. Well, if I could just kind of paint a little picture of what a SteriCenter would look like with this equipment, which you can find all through the Tutanauer products. So this helped me to really go, oh, wow, this would be fun. This would be a good infection control processing in the SteriCenter. So just envision a SteriCenter equipped with Wi-Fi and that IoT -enabled equipment. Picture having a steam autoclave. and your high-level disinfecting washer, and a biological indicator, that spore test I was talking about, that reader for in-office testing. And all of that is connected to Wi-Fi and the IoT technology. And so after you are cleaning and performing that high-level disinfection of your instruments, you're ready to initiate a sterilization cycle in the autoclave, and you have to include a biological indicator test. As you log in as a user on that autoclave, you simply mark a checkbox to indicate that the biological indicator test is part of that cycle. And then once the cycle is complete, you carefully, you know, retrieve the BI or that biological indicator vial, and then you place it in the incubator, knowing that in about 20 minutes, you'll receive the critical results that you need to know that your autoclave is actually sterilizing things. And this is where the magic, I think, of the... connectivity starts. So the BI reader would send that test information directly to your online dashboard, and the dashboard displays the details like the cycle performed, the user's name, and the BI test results. And so with that data, you can quickly verify that the cycle was successful and that all the necessary infection control steps were completed. And so the real-time documentation and the traceability bring advantages to your practice, I think, especially as somebody who monitors a lot of sterilization practices. The cycle and that associated BI test results can be downloaded and secured wherever you need it. Maybe it's on the cloud. And this not only... your records are always accessible, but also I think it paves the way for like future analyses, like future audits. It's all very exciting and it will give us the ability to make sure that we keep our patients safe, keep our employees safe. I know OSHA would love that and also protect us against possible unfortunate legal issues that may come up in the future where we have to document what we did so we can prove that we weren't responsible for this patient's problem with an infection that they think may have occurred at a dental practice through instruments. So it's a win-win-win all the way through. Thank you very much, Michelle. We really appreciate your time. Thank you for having me. If you're enjoying this podcast and have an Instagram account, please follow us, PhilKleinPodcast. Every week we'll be adding high quality relevant content. And to support this program, please leave a review on your favorite podcast platform. It really does make a difference. Thank you so much for listening. See you next time.