The Compliance Divas Podcast
Our podcast covers current topics such as infection prevention and control, OSHA and HIPAA compliance for dentistry. We discuss the latest regulatory information, answer frequently asked questions and give suggestions for dental practices to make compliance easy and sustainable. The Compliance Divas are a trusted source for consistent, accurate information based upon current guidelines, standards, science, and recommendations.
The Compliance Divas Podcast
#176 Computer Keyboards, Mice, and the Microbes They Harbor
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Have you ever "cleaned" the computer keyboard and mouse in your treatment room? Likely it's contaminated, although barriers help, but CDC guidelines state that even barrier protected equipment like computers hardware should be cleaned and disinfected between patients.
- Divas Discount Code: CompDivas10
- 2016 CDC Summary of Infection Prevention Practices in Dental Settings-Basic expectations for Safe Dental Care-Page 16-17. https://www.cdc.gov/dental-infection-control/hcp/summary/index.html
- Man and Machine. https://www.man-machine.com/
Welcome.
SPEAKER_03I'm Leslie Cannum. I'm Mary Gavoni.
SPEAKER_02I'm Linda Harvey. I'm Olivia Wan, and together we are the Compliance Divas.
SPEAKER_00Welcome to the Compliance Divas podcast. This is Leslie Cannum, and I will be your moderator today for our very special podcast with Man and Machines owned Natasha Vandros. At the Compliance Divas, we bring clarity and simplicity to compliance by navigating regulatory compliance to keep you on course. We encourage you to subscribe to the Compliance Divas podcast through your favorite podcast channel or directly through our website, thecompliancedivas.com. Resources that we mentioned during our podcast can be found on the show notes of the podcast. If you have questions, please feel free to submit those questions to support at thecompliancedivas.com. And now to kick off diecam week, for those of you that don't know what diecam is, that's dental infection control awareness month. We have a very special guest who represents Man and Machine. Now, Man and Machine was founded in 1982 by Clifton Broman, also known as the Big Cheese. And the focus was man's interaction with computer peripherals. As a result of his research, he has come up with a disinfectable and washable keyboard and mouse. Now, this is important for a number of reasons, and Natasha Bandras, who is also known as King of the World at Man and Machine, is going to give us some more insight as to how a washable and disinfectable keyboard and mouse would work for us in a dental practice. Natasha actually joined Man and Machine in 2011, and she was promoted to run sales and marketing department in 2018. Now, an interesting thing about our guest is that she loves to spend time with her family, friends, and staying active and healthy, but this is how she stays active and healthy. In her spare time, her current goal is to complete 55Ks in 2024. If you don't know what a 5K is, that's a run that's done five kilometers. Natasha just completed her 35th 5K run, and it looks like she's gonna make it with another 15 to her goal of 55Ks in 2024. Natasha, welcome. We're so glad to have you here with us on this very special podcast focusing on infection control and computers and keyboards and other equipment in a dental office. I'm gonna ask Mary Ardiva to uh pose a few questions that our listeners might be interested in finding out about.
SPEAKER_03Thanks, Leslie, and welcome back, Natasha. We are thrilled to have you with us again and so proud of you on your accomplishment outside of work. So let's get down to the nuts and bolts of things. Why is it so important to have a washable keyboard and a mouse?
SPEAKER_04So, in especially in dental and healthcare environments, it's very important to have a keyboard that can be cleaned and disinfected between treatment, treatments, uses, patients, whatever the case may be. You don't want to pass on germs, microbes, bio load from patient to patient. And so you need a peripheral that can be cleaned and disinfected at the workstation with minimal downtime for the staff so they could just easily wipe it down and get back to work.
SPEAKER_03One of the things that I hear from some of the practices that I work with is well, we never touch the mouse and we never touch the keyboard with contaminated gloves. So what what's the big deal?
SPEAKER_04So in a dental practice, you're also dealing with aerosols and other sprays in the air that can get onto your peripherals, whether you're touching it or not during the exam. Um, actually, I would recommend checking out the artist formerly known as OSAP, ADS's um if saliva were red video. It does feature a man-a-machine keyboard and mouse in that video and just shows throughout how the aerosols are spraying in the air and landing on everything that you would not even imagine the headpiece, the side chair, the armrests, the tools on the side, everything. You're getting aerosols on everything.
SPEAKER_03Thank you for bringing that up. And if saliva were red is available on the ADS website, it's free to download, it's free to view, and it will answer that question about um why is it such a big deal? Thanks, Natasha.
SPEAKER_00Definitely. Now we're gonna move on to Linda, who has questions about how do you take that task of cleaning and disinfecting.
SPEAKER_01Thank you, Leslie, and welcome, Natasha. You are setting an inspiration for me. Maybe it's not too late this year to start increasing my health goals. So thank you for sharing those with us. All the time, I'm gonna say all the time, because I feel like I see this all the time in practices, Natasha. I see team members as they're changing out the room and cleaning and disinfecting in between patients, they have some kind of barrier typically over the keyboard. Most of them do, but everyone that does, they're wrapping and unwrapping, and it takes so much time to do this. So it makes more sense to have something washable. Now, let's suppose I can't wash it in between each patient, Natasha. How do you uh otherwise recommend cleaning and disinfecting the man and machine products?
SPEAKER_04So, one of the cool things with our products, and all of our keyboards have a cool name to them. Um, and for the dental practice, we recommend either the It's Cool wireless keyboard or the Very Cool, or now our brand new Waiku keyboard. The Vericool and the Waiku keyboards can be locked. Um, we have a key lock function on the keys built in. So you can just do a simple command to lock the keys, wipe it down, spray it, wipe it down, and then spray it again. That way you're removing any bio load, any aerosols, any germs and contaminants, and then leave it locked. So the next person using that operatory coming in knows that the keyboard has already been disinfected and they can just unlock it and get to work. One of the cool features is that the indicator lights are going to flash continuously while it is locked. So you'll know that if you come into the operatory and you see the lights flashing, it's already been cleaned or disinfected.
SPEAKER_01I love the visualization with that, Natasha, because how many times have all of us, Divas, heard stories from clients and audiences that we thought it was clean or we thought somebody else had done it. And our perfect example is using unsterilized instruments on the next patient, you know, our dirty instruments. So I'm sure you've seen the same thing, Natasha, right?
SPEAKER_04One other cool feature that we have with our um keyboards, especially the It's Cool Wireless, the Y Cool, and the Very Cool, is a printed fitted drape for some of them, or a clear silicone drape. And those can be also cleaned and disinfected easily between treatments and then at the end of the night sterilize.
SPEAKER_01So that's that's two different options that make it so simple and so easy. I mean, it's it's effortless. One, if you don't have the cover, you can lock the keyboard with, like you said, just real quick, and it you can wipe, you don't have to worry about hitting the keys. I know sometimes when I'm not using my machine, if I'm at a different desktop or whatnot, I'm clear clean it, and it's impossible because as soon as I start even just dusting it on my behalf here, then the keys are all hitting something. So I've got all kinds of applications open that I didn't want to open. So it's a challenge. I love the fact that it's lockable and I love the visualization of the flashing light. So you can the next person that comes in knows it's been clean. So thank you for sharing that, Natasha. I think that's really important for today's workflow when offices are trying to work smarter, not harder. And many of the team members coming into dentistry these days don't have any dental experience. So just make it easy for everybody.
SPEAKER_00That's definitely our goal. Natasha, Olivia has questions about your other products. Olivia?
SPEAKER_02Thank you, Leslie. Natasha, we love Man and Machine, the keyboard. As Linda mentioned, this is a huge area potentially for cross-contamination. But I'm curious about what other sterilizable accessories that Man and Machine offers. Can you speak to our audience about that?
SPEAKER_04Yeah, so the first one is going to be our sterilizable mouse pad, which is a hundred percent silicone mouse pad. It's unlike your typical uh mouse pad that has a foam underside to it, which can house bioload and microbes and everything. This mouse pad can actually go in your autoclave at 134 degrees Celsius. So you have a sterile work surface that your mouse is operating on. Another item we have is called the cool drape, which actually can be used in multiple ways. It can be used as a keyboard cover. It is a large silicone sheet that is transparent. So you can see the characters on your keyboard and use it as a drape over that keyboard. But you can also use it chair side where you're sliding in your instruments in the grooves at the chair. We've had hygienists that have used the cool drape in those grooves as a sterile work surface for those instruments, as well as on the dental trays and the cassettes to hold the instruments that you guys use in an operatory. You just have another sterile work surface. So you're not having to use the disposable blue towels that are clogging up landfills.
SPEAKER_02Wow, such clever ideas and amazing things that we can offer in a practice. Thank you, Natasha.
SPEAKER_00You know, Natasha, that brings up some important uh points for me. On the mouse pad, my mouse pad is fabric. So if I were to disinfect it, I would probably have to wait a half an hour for that thing to dry. So I'm thrilled to know that there's a disinfectable mouse pad as well. And with many dental offices, general dentists moving into placing implants, having a sterile working field is so important. And you can assure a sterile working field if you have something like a sheep or a cover that you can use over your treatment tray, as opposed to a paper cover or a patient bib or something that has not gone through the sterilizer. What other things or what other items does Mana Machine offer that might be beneficial in a dental practice? And just tell us what and why.
SPEAKER_04So the other cool item we have is called the private eye monitor. And it's a LCD monitor that we can install a high-quality privacy filter on. And we have OEM agreements in place with Dell, HP, Samsung, and Planar that allow us to do that work without voiding the end user warranty. So when you're using a monitor, let's say at the front desk or facing patient areas, you want to be able to protect the patient confidential information. And that's something that you can do with the man-in-machine private eye.
SPEAKER_00That is great, Natasha, because you know, even at the front desk, I remember when I worked in a dental office, I would be on the computer, and many times patients would step around to see my computer monitor, maybe when I was making an appointment or uh you know getting financials up. And I don't always want them to see the monitor because there's some privacy issues, uh, especially today with all the regulations surrounding HIPAA. So having the ability to be able to create that private one-on-one experience with a computer monitor is amazing. I think now we would probably be best going back to our divas, and Natasha, of course, you can chime in. We like to do a round robin, talk a little bit about what we've experienced as consultants in the field. And uh, Mary, why don't you give us a little information on what you've seen with regards to keyboards and mice?
SPEAKER_03I shared a little bit of that earlier in that um I hear from practices all the time, from team members say, Well, we never touch that keyboard with our contaminated hands. We don't touch the mouse. And Natasha, you just so brilliantly answered that. But the other thing that I do hear is for folks that are using some kind of a silicone, for lack of better description, cover on their keyboards, they eventually turn yellow and kind of nasty looking. So, what's the big advantage with man and machine?
SPEAKER_04So, a lot of the barriers that are being used currently in the dental environment, they're actually a plastic barrier that is not reusable. Our drapes that we've designed for our keyboards are designed using a high-quality silicone that is designed for use in a dental healthcare environment and can be sterilized at that 134 degrees Celsius, unbagged. So it minimizes the amount of downtime you have and you can just get right back to work. Another cool thing is that the cold drate, which is that large silicone sheet, comes in a four-pack now that gives you the opportunity to have one out while you're sterilizing another one from a previous treatment, and you can just always have a fresh one in rotation.
SPEAKER_03And the the typical keyboard covers do not discolor from the use of surface disinfectants.
SPEAKER_04Yes, you can use wipes, PDI, all the standard heart surface cleaners that you're using currently in a dental practice on our keyboards and mice and the drapes, and you're not going to see any discoloration in the white products, you're not going to see any character or rub-off, you're not going to see any rips or tears in the drapes.
SPEAKER_03And I really like the fact that they are white because they look very aseptic in a treatment room. Great. Thanks, Natasha.
SPEAKER_04One of our um main statements is flatter matters. And it's because with white product, you're going to more easily see the presence of blood and bioload and other contaminants that you're not necessarily going to see on a black product.
SPEAKER_03So true.
SPEAKER_00Thanks so much. Now, um, Linda, you had a couple of things you wanted to talk about.
SPEAKER_01Oh, I want to talk about that spider zone. And I just hope our listeners will just really lean in right now because what you just said, Natasha, about the black keyboard and not seeing anything equally applies to all the black uniforms that are very common these days. And while we're not talking about PPE, the some principle is very similar. You can't tell when your scrub jacket's contaminated, for example. But I have seen the research cited in some of the different products on the market and dentistry related to evacuation systems and so forth, that the spray and splatter in a dill hygiene operatory is eight feet from the head of a patient. It doesn't matter what six feet or eight feet or whatever you've read in Rich study. We know the keyboard is in that hot zone. It's within three feet because they want to be able to turn around and touch it when they need to bring something up and then go back many times. And so this is so critical to really pay attention. So when we think about our workflow and that whole process, just imagine yourself what you're doing all day long. I'm going to ask you, listeners, just imagine your day when you start, we finish the patient, you're getting ready to clean up, and you have to do all this extra step. It may only take you a couple of minutes, and I know, but how much faster could you have more time to do other important tasks than change out a barrier on a keyboard? So thank you for being here today, Natasha.
SPEAKER_04Thank you all for having me.
SPEAKER_00Well, we have another uh Diva that Olivia would like to chime in on some of the things that she's seen as a consultant and as an attorney regarding keyboards and mice. Olivia?
SPEAKER_02Well, I just wanted to echo what the other divas had mentioned is that when we go into an office that's putting barrier on the keyboard, they may not be replacing the barrier. Or they complain that the barrier is loose and it wiggles, it's hard to type. If they don't have barriers and they say they have policy that they don't contaminate the keyboards with gloved hands, well, that is often not true because we're there observing them, and it's so difficult not to violate that policy. And so it's really challenging because we know that these hygienists and assistants are already working very hard dealing with the labor shortage, many offices below 11% of capacity because they don't have enough hands. And when that's the case, then we mess up. So we're really appreciative, Natasha, of your company being able to produce the products that our audience needs and at least take advantage of this discount that you're offering, even if they only ordered one item or one keyboard to try it out or one drape and just test it and see if it's something that fits into their program. And if not, they've only had a minimal expense, which I really see as an asset.
SPEAKER_00That's amazing information, Olivia. I wanted to add that uh periodically when I am called in to do some training at a dental office, when it's because they had either a dental board issue or they had a run-in and citation with OSHA, keyboards and mice are one of the things that I see frequently as the items that are cited. And uh the keyboard from the OSHA perspective is that uh dental workers may be uh contaminating themselves from the keyboard. And uh the barrier, of course, if it's being changed after every patient resolves that uh issue. And from the dental board standpoint, they're looking at a patient perspective. They want to make sure that that the patient doesn't suffer from cross-contamination that way. So it would serve everyone to be mindful of where we can have cross-contamination go, how it can affect us as dental workers, how it could affect our patients, and then ultimately how it could affect the reputation of the practice should they have an event that causes some public media. And when there are any kind of outbreaks in infection control and dentistry, uh, it may be something that makes the top of the hour news. Natasha, thank you so much for being with us today and giving us some great information. Olivia spoke about a discount that is offered through Man and Machine. It's sort of a special discount that's designed for our listeners. It's a 10% discount on every product that they we mentioned today and that they have. And if you go to the uh Man and Machine website or you call, the discount code or the promo code is comp divas. That's C-O-M-P-D-I-V A-S 10. Comp divas 10. And that's the 10 is for 10%. And if make it easy, the compliant divas with an S, it's plural, it's Comp Divas 10. This will be good until the end of the year, which is uh December 20th for them. They're going to take a nice little break during the holidays, just like a lot of our dental practices are. And again, I encourage everyone to uh pay close attention to the areas in your dental practice that could be a point of cross-contamination. Everything that was mentioned here today, whether it's uh not having barriers to whether it's well, we don't need to change the barrier between patients, or even something more egrecious, disinfecting the barriers and saying that that's good enough. And we know that that's not good. Natasha, any other final thoughts or words for our listeners before we sign off?
SPEAKER_04No, it's just always a pleasure to meet with the compliance divas. You guys are rock stars in the industry, and I appreciate and we at Man and Machine appreciate everything that you're doing to educate more the importance for infection control in dental practices.
SPEAKER_00Natasha, thank you so much. This has been a very special episode for one of our favorite months of the year, dental infection control awareness month or DICAM. And we'd like to remind you that the Compliance Divas bring clarity and simplicity to compliance by navigating regulatory compliance to keep you on course. If you have questions, submit them to the support to support at compliancedivas.com. We also have the resources for you from today's podcast on the show notes in our podcast. So if you uh click on the podcast and you see the show notes, you can click on the various different uh items of resource information and also a little wire that shows what the cool wireless keyboard and the very cool wireless keyboard look like. Thanks again, everyone, for listening. We'll sign off until next time.