The dental industry continues to change as new technologies, safety requirements and compliance responsibilities become part of everyday practice. Keeping your team informed and prepared is important for maintaining an efficient dental office and delivering consistent patient care.
Hayes provides dental staff training for dentists, dental assistants, hygienists, office managers and other team members involved in patient care, compliance or dental equipment. Training options cover important areas such as OSHA workplace safety, HIPAA privacy, infection control, CDC guidelines and continuing education.
Our courses are designed to make staff education easier to fit around a busy practice. Online training and flexible scheduling options allow dental teams to complete relevant education with less disruption to normal patient schedules.
Dental Office Staff Training for Your Entire Team
Effective dental office staff training should reflect the different responsibilities within a practice. Clinical team members may need education related to workplace safety, infection prevention and equipment handling, while front desk and administrative employees may require greater focus on patient privacy, documentation and office procedures.
Providing relevant training across these roles helps team members better understand their responsibilities and supports a more consistent approach to safety, compliance and day-to-day practice operations. It can also make onboarding new employees and keeping existing staff up to date easier to manage.
Depending on your team’s responsibilities, training may include workplace safety, patient privacy, infection control or continuing education. The options below can help your practice identify the training most relevant to its staff.
Dental OSHA Training
The OSHA (Occupational Safety and Health Administration) requires dental offices to complete an annual course in order to maintain their license. This course includes topics such as blood-borne pathogens, sharps injury prevention, and emergency procedures.
While attending these courses, dentists learn how to protect themselves against various hazards. They also receive information regarding proper sterilization techniques and how to properly dispose of used equipment. Dentists are required to attend continual training both general and specialty courses annually.
In order to comply with HIPAA regulations, dentists must ensure that patient information remains confidential. This includes keeping records secure and ensuring that these records cannot be accessed without permission.
Dentists also need to make sure that they keep patient files safe and out of reach of unauthorized personnel.
This is because there are many ways that someone could access patient data without authorization. For example, a dentist may leave a file unattended while he goes to lunch. Or, a person might steal a file from a filing cabinet.
To protect themselves against such risks, dentists must follow strict security procedures when handling patient records. These include locking cabinets and storing files in locked offices.
Patients should also be informed about how their personal health information is stored and handled. If they choose to opt-out of having their records shared, they should sign a form stating that they wish to remain anonymous.
The best way to describe CE credits is that they are an indication of how much education a dentist has received. This can include courses taken online or offline.
CE credits are also used to determine whether or not someone is qualified to practice dentistry.
For example, a person may have completed dental school and passed the state board exams but did not receive any CE credit because he/she took classes online. In order to become licensed, the individual would have to complete additional hours of clinical training. In addition to completing more hours of clinical training, a person would also have to pass another exam called recertification.
Recertification is required each year after licensure. If a person fails the recertification exam, he/she cannot continue practising dentistry.
CE credits are required for all clinicians within a practice including hygienists and Doctors.
There are two types of CE credits: continuing education (CE) and recertification credits.
Continuing Education Credits:
These are credits earned while working toward becoming a licensed dentist. A dentist can earn these credits by taking courses offered by accredited schools. These courses are usually taught by instructors certified by the American Dental Association.
Hayes training courses can allow you to earn up to 4 CE credits for each attendee, through ViVa Learning, keeping your dental office staff up to date and eligible to keep running your practice.
The CDC provides guidelines for dental practices in the United States. These guidelines include recommendations on dental procedures for the prevention, diagnosis, treatment, and control of oral diseases.
These guidelines also address the role of dentists in preventing and controlling infectious diseases.
In addition, these guidelines cover topics such as the importance of fluoride, proper nutrition during pregnancy, and the benefits of regular dental care.
At Hayes Handpiece we have experts in CDC guidelines on our staff to help ensure that we can help you with any regulatory requirements.
