ES Precision has helped an Oxfordshire dental practice to keep track of dental tools without the need for label application or hard-to-read serial numbers. The laser marks are permanent, clear and withstand repeated autoclaving.
Deddington Dental is a 4-surgery dental practice with around 40 fast and slow dental handpieces that are used by 7 dentists and looked after by 8 nurses. Each dental handpiece costs £400-700 so it is important to keep track and account for each one. Each surgery has its own allocation of handpieces, and they are taken to a different decontamination room and processed several times each day.
Akhil Gupta, Principle Dentist, explains: “Previously, we relied on using the tiny serial numbers marked on the handpieces or using a coloured tape on each one to identify which surgery they belonged to. The method of using the serial number was very time consuming and hard to read. The tapes would regularly come off when the handpieces were autoclaved.”
The handpieces are made out of titanium or stainless steel and some are coated by physical vapour deposition (PVD), so Deddington Dental needed a permanent marking solution that would be compatible with each of these materials and also their regular cleaning processes.
Dr Gupta continues: “After researching, we decided on laser marking with a local company, ES Precision. We were able to mark each handpiece with S1, 2, 3 or 4 (for surgery 1-4). These marks were clear and large enough and were cost-effective to do. Now, our nurses can easily identify each handpiece and we can account for each one at the beginning and end of the day as part of our daily checklists. The feedback from my nurses has been that the process saves a lot of time and looks a lot neater than using a coloured tape.”