#230 Year End Spotlight on the Stand-Out Episodes

Wrap up 2025 with a special episode celebrating the industry partners who make our mission possible. Join the Divas as we spotlight our sponsor community—the innovators, educators, and industry champions who elevate compliance and empower dental teams nationwide.

 It’s a heartfelt look back, a gratitude-filled shout‑out, and an inspiring launchpad for the year ahead.

• #203 Midmark Next Generation Sterilizer: https://www.buzzsprout.com/1774326/episodes/17065372
• #217 Parkell Pure Clarity: https://www.buzzsprout.com/1774326/episodes/17934888
• #203 New Water Testing Laws: https://www.buzzsprout.com/1774326/episodes/16901618 
• #213 Agenics Value of 3rd Party Testing: https://www.buzzsprout.com/1774326/episodes/17721070 
• #222 Vitalert Color-coded Compliance/Emergency Drugs: https://www.buzzsprout.com/1774326/episodes/18073328 
• #210 Dove Dental Capt-All: https://www.buzzsprout.com/1774326/episodes/17601644 

                                                 https://www.thecompliancedivas.com

Transcript

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SPEAKER_02 0:05

Welcome. I'm Leslie Cannum. I'm Mary Gavoni. I'm Linda Harvey.

SPEAKER_01 0:10

I'm Olivia Juan. And together we are the Compliance Divas.

SPEAKER_00 0:19

Welcome to the Compliance Divas Podcast. I'm Leslie Cannum and I'll be your moderator for this very special episode. As we close the year, we like to reflect on the sponsors who made our podcast possible and help us to help you simplify compliance in dentistry. Mary, would you like to give us a little bit of information on some of the podcasts that you felt were the best of the best? And then we'll go on to Linda with her best of the best. And I'll provide a little bit of information about the best of the best from my perspective from our sponsors this year.

SPEAKER_02 1:01

Absolutely, Leslie. And I would just like to reiterate what you said about how our partner sponsors in the dental industry help to bring this information to you, not only about their new products, but being able to make this podcast accessible to everyone. So the first um sponsor I want to give a shout out to is Midmark. Midmark is a manufacturer not only of dental equipment, but of course, as we say in our podcast episode number 204, the beloved M11 sterilizers that so many practices have in their offices. And they underwent a very big upgrade, update, refresh of their M11 and M9 sterilizers this year with more enhanced electronics and monitoring. You can look at the the screen during a cycle and know exactly where your instrument processing, instrument sterilization cycle is, how many more. It's not just looking at the timer to know how many more minutes is everything where it needs to be, that the temperature and the pressure and so forth. And you can also track those non-compliant employees who might be shortening the cycle, who might be um removing items from the sterilizer before the dry cycle is completed. And not that you want to punish them, but you need to retrain those employees. And this is a great tool because it documents who did it. Um you can focus on those people who may be kind of breaking the rules. The other advantages of this new sterilizer is that because the surface is so um streamlined and can be easily cleaned, it's been tested and tested and tested to make sure it withstands exposure to disinfecting solutions. It can be connected via internet connection to save your records and all those types of things. Just cannot say enough good things. I cherish this new sterilizer. It is amazing. And as our friends at Parquel shared with us, they have tons of pictures and videos of water samples that they have taken out of ultrasonic units that have come in for repair. And I think I remember the word or the words pond water being used to describe what this water was like. And we don't want pond water going into our patients' mouths. And so what Park done is introduced a new product called Pure Clarity, that is for ultrasonic scalars, and it has two components to it. One is a filter that's actually an antimicrobial filter that filters microbes out before the water is discharged through the ultrasonic scalar, and they have a shock mechanism that can be used directly on the ultrasonic scalar. So even if the water supply to the unit comes from a water bottle or a filtration system and goes through the ultrasonic unit, the ultrasonic may have higher CFU levels than the rest of the unit, and it may not pass separately. And so many water tests are done as a pooled sample from the hand pieces, the air water syringes, and the ultrasonic scalers. And just sort of as an aside, um, I have had the practices that I've been in for the last several months test their ultrasonic units, and every single one of them has failed. And so we've been shocking those ultrasonic units separately. So please go and listen or relisten to episode number 217 on cleaning your ultrasonic scalars.

SPEAKER_00 5:47

Mary, thank you so much. And as a reminder, in the show notes, we have the resources for information and uh checklists. And it's these companies really help to educate us. And not only are they excited about their products, I mean I couldn't believe how much enthusiasm there was from Parkell about actually, it seemed like more than any of the other things that they they uh have at products that they sell is that the enthusiasm for the ultrasonic scalars and how to help the dental industry provide safer dental care to their patients. So again, episode number 204 for mid-mark and their next generation sterilizers and parquel for pure clarity is episode number 217. Linda, you have some information on not only sponsors that help us with products and services that we can use, but also help us stay in compliance with regulations. And so, would you give us your tips on the top podcasts from sponsors this year?

SPEAKER_01 6:52

I'd be happy to, Leslie. And I look forward to this episode every year because it's an opportunity to one, express gratitude to our sponsor partners for their continued sponsorship and promotion and helping us share this information and get the word out on important topics and new products and just the science behind everything. My two podcasts, Leslie, revolve around water lines, similar to Mary's with Parquel. And I know we hear so much about water lines, but the truth of the matter is we can't hear enough about it because I have some of the most unusual situations that have happened in offices that I've been called to work in on for legal cases, and my own personal clients that just things are happening that they don't know how to explain, and they get confused in between our visits and training sessions. So it's important to understand those. So first I'd like to focus on episode 203 with Solemantics and the changing waterline standards. And that's an important podcast because we were talking about the new law in Georgia related to the requirements now to test quarterly and maintain your records for five years. And there was a whole sequence of processes that was covered in that Georgia law. And we know divas because we've talked about some of the issues that have happened in Georgia and also in California where there have been disease transmission. And the Georgia Dental Board took it very seriously and took it to a standard that just became effective in the beginning of I think it was February 2025. So every dental practice in Georgia now must comply with this standard. It's not a nice to know or best practice, it's a law. And that's why Livia Diva wanted me to shout out today about making sure that everybody stays up to date with the dental board standards in their state, because we know besides Georgia and the state of Washington, other states will be following suit. And Leslie, I know you've mentioned several times that you're following closely some change coming changes to the California Dental Practice Act. So those are just a couple of examples of why we need to keep our ear to the ground, if you will, and stay tuned to the Divas podcast because we will bring you all those light-breaking information as they as that comes available. And then my second podcast, Leslie, would have to be the one with a genics, where it's no more maybes with our dental orderline testing. It's be assured. And this was episode number 213. And what was important about this one is that it helped our listeners to really understand, more than just doing an in-office test, what the importance of doing third-party testing was. And in this case, we're talking about a test called an R2A, and that is a microbiological microbiological test that consists of using a low-nutrient auger test plate, and it's allowed to incubate for a certain number of days. And they can really look further at the direct number or the exact number of colony-forming units of bacteria that's in that dental unit waterline. So instead of getting a pass fail or maybe using a paddle test where you're estimating a range of CFUs, now you have the exact number, and it's very powerful data. So it's really important that we incorporate that into our dental protocols where we're using third-party testing throughout the year. And Leslie, I'd also like to draw our listeners to the attention that the genetics company has a great academy library on their website about failed tests and health risks with water lines. So let's make sure we include a link to all the podcasts mentioned today so that if one of these piques somebody's interest, they can easily go back and take a listen and go back to the great resources that the Divas strive so hard to make available for all of our listeners.

SPEAKER_00 10:29

That's right, Linda. We'll do that because uh episode number 203 with Sematics talking about dental unit waterline regulations changing in Georgia, in Washington. And I'm watching very closely as the California Dental Board is now taking their draft regulations, which include something about dental unit waterline testing. I'm hoping that that's going to stay. We're not sure it's going to be going through the Office of Administrative Law. And then when it comes out, it'll go out for a public comment period. But that's something that uh we we can't just guess. We're you're just guessing if you're not testing, is the bottom line. So on the compliance divas podcast on the show notes, we'll make sure that we provide those resources. And uh we will also want to make sure that uh we mentioned that our diva legal eagle, Olivia Juan, has uh had actually quite a bit of experience with uh not only uh waterline testing and waterline testing companies, but she also was the star, the litigator uh for the defense in a uh was a mock trial that was uh at the uh what's now called Association for Dental Safety, but uh was formerly known as OSEF, the Organization for Safety Esepsis and Prevention, where she and and Dr. Ed Zinman, who is they're both attorneys, uh had a mock trial where where the defendant was a dentist who didn't test her dental unit water. And uh not only was she in the line of fire, but also the manufacturer of the dental unit, the manufacturer of the product that they used for testing dental unit water and and our recommended uh a regime for that. So it it really brought uh very close focus on what can happen in a dental office should a patient have an ill effect, and the determination is that there was infection control issues surrounding dental unit water. And I know for uh from experience that in California, the case with the children's dental group, um as far as I know, that case is still ongoing, and it has been almost 10 years since the first child was diagnosed with the lymphodeniitis and the mycobacterium epsis as a result of the dental unit water. There were 72 children that were hospitalized in that case, 73 of them uh were actually affected by the water, and over 200 lawsuits were filed. So, in moving on to some of our other uh sponsor partners that we appreciate and have provided us with so much information and have given us so many resources for patient safety. I want to talk first about Vital Alert, which is uh a it's a dental emergency kit that is something that is so well organized. We learned from Lee Majuris, who is uh the program manager for Vital Alert at Young's Innovation, and he talked about the line of emergency medical kits that are available in dentistry today. And he shared with us that one of the big concerns, and I guess you could say the the pain points for dental practices was that they get a uh kit that is put together already, and then uh when products or pharmaceuticals expire, then new pharmaceuticals are have either have to be purchased to replace the products or they have to be on a subscription where the uh pharmaceutical that expires, a new one is sent. The pain point is that many of the pharmaceuticals that are received from the shipping don't actually make it into the emergency medical kit. They're sometimes placed in the places that we put our uh received boxes or deliveries from the dental suppliers that we get our products from. And and it's also confusing for many practices. So there was a request that they just get a new kit every year that has everything in it. And we thought that was just stellar for saving time, especially in practices today where workforce shortage is an issue and being able to provide patient care and effectively manage infection control and keep all of these other things top of mind. When it comes to patient safety, we can't have any mix-ups or slip-ups. So uh we've we're really thrilled to know that there's a color-coded way that we can keep our emergency kits easily organized and with quick reference guides and and we can have the material, the pharmaceuticals that we need readily available that are going to work, that are not expired. Another one of our sponsor partners is DovDental, and this is where we have simplicity meeting regulations and cost efficiency. This was podcast number 210. And EPA, Environmental Protection Agency, amalgam waste regulations are actually very strict. So if you get them wrong, it can lead to heavy fines. So even if a dental practice doesn't place amalgams, if you prep teeth that have amalgam fillings, you must comply with the regulations. And in that episode, we were joined by Charles McCary from Dove Dental, who shared many great insights on EPA standards, best management practices, and more importantly, innovative and inexpensive alternatives to amalgam separators. He introduced a device called CAPTOL, and it's an amalgam capture device that is it, it's actually a high-velocity evacuator tip. And the beauty of this is that so you don't place amalgams, but sometimes you prep teeth that have amalgams. You use it when you're going to encounter that circumstance where you're prepping a tooth and you're removing amalgam. You can remove the amalgam safely and efficiently with the Capdol device. It's easy to use and it's cleaner than uh any ordinary amalgam capture device. Capdol's specifically designed filter actually keeps harmful mercury out of the dental equipment, out of the vacuum lines, and out of secondary filters. So they also have a recycling program where you purchase the Capdol. It looks like an evacuator tip that's a little slightly designed differently. And you can actually return the used or the spent evacuator tip, the capdol device that has the amalgam in it, back to Capdol. So they take care of the recycling for you. And we thought that that was a great way to reduce the the costs of uh having an amalgam separator and the maintenance that's required annually, uh the recycling. And again, it it answers the question for many dental practices that say, well, why do we need this? We don't place amalgams. So with that, we are closing our year-end favorite, thanking our sponsor partners for the year, and want to remind you that there are the episodes that are available on our website, the compliancedevas.com, where you can click on each one of those episodes. Go to the show notes where you can find out more information about the products and then also the resources. Oftentimes there are checklists that will help you in making sure that your practice is compliant and gives you a good basis for putting together your own infection control manual. At the compliance divas, we bring clarity and simplicity to compliance by navigating regulatory compliance to keep you on track. Please take a look at the show notes. And if you'll scroll down, leave us a renew a review and know that you can subscribe to the compliance divas podcast through your favorite podcast channel, or you can go to the our website, the compliancedivas.com. Again, please make those resources available to your team and stay compliant throughout the next year. Please also submit your questions to support at the compliancedevas.com. And with that, we leave you with our year end podcast.