Patient Safety, Treatment Effectiveness, and Your Bottom Line

ND sterile straight

Patient safety, efficient and high-quality treatment, and cost effectiveness. When these three pillars of a successful dental practice can be achieved with a material, instrument, or technology, you’ve found a product that will provide you with a return on your investment. 

Consider dental burs. These practice workhorses—when designed correctly and used properly—have the ability to protect patients from harm, ensure effective treatment is performed quickly, and save the practice money. Microcopy’s single-use patient burs hit the mark across the board. 

Patient Safety 

Reusable items aren’t necessarily the best or safest. If an instrument can’t be cleaned adequately, then it shouldn’t be reused, even if it’s safe to place it in an autoclave. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention notes that the single-use versions of many dental products—such as prophy angles, impression trays, and dental burs—may be safer because their reusable counterparts are difficult to clean. Burs are inherently challenging to clean, so single-use options provide the best patient protection from cross-contamination. 

All of Microcopy’s single-use burs are presterilized and individually wrapped in transparent pouches for easy identification. In addition, all of the company’s NeoDiamond burs are gamma-sterilized for enhanced antimicrobial action. 

ROI: Tell patients that you’re using single-use burs and why. Show them the individually wrapped instruments and explain all of the safety benefits. Patients will be impressed with your focus on their safety, they’ll return to the practice, and they’ll tell their friends and family. 

Efficient, High-Quality Treatment 

Some believe that single-use burs aren’t as effective as multi-use versions. The argument is that single-use burs are made of lower-quality materials and aren’t up to the task of preparing teeth and crowns. But what does the science say? 

According to a study by Pilcher and colleagues, when single-use and multi-use diamond burs were compared head-to-head, they achieved similar reductions in cutting rates as well as loss of diamond particles and binders. A study by Siegel and von Fraunhofer concluded that there were no differences in cutting efficiency between medium-grit conventional and disposable diamond burs. 

Using a new bur with each patient offers benefits beyond cutting efficiency. For example, fresh burs generate less heat, which reduces hard-tissue trauma, and single-use diamond burs have a lower risk of clogging so you don’t have to increase pressure and potentially damage handpieces. 

ROI: When you don’t have to struggle because a bur has been used and sterilized multiple times, procedures are more effective and less time-consuming. You’ll spend less time with individual patients so you can get more done in a day, and patients will notice that procedures are completed more quickly. 

Cost-Effectiveness 

Time is money, so why not reduce (or even eliminate) some of the time (and money) involved in certain protocols and procedures. The time required to properly clean and sterilize multi-use burs is time better spent on patient care. Single-use burs take this step out of the process so you can easily and quickly move to the next patient with fresh burs. 

In addition, single-use burs—although just as strong and effective as their multi-use counterparts—typically are less expensive. In fact, a study by Christensen concluded that single-use diamonds used for one crown prep had the best combination of speed and low cost when compared to a variety of multi-use diamonds. 

ROI: Following proper protocols and procedures is critical to a successful practice, but when you can safely eliminate a step (bur sterilization, in this case), you can put that time and money back into the business to improve patient care, add services, and increase profitability. 

The Bottom Line 

Microcopy’s single-use burs are an answer to several questions that may be keeping you up at night: How do I keep my patients safe? How do I ensure restorative procedures are effective and efficient? How do I cut costs without cutting treatment quality? At the end of the day, that’s your bottom line. Investing in products and technologies that improve patient care and increase profitability will help you achieve it. 

 

References 

Christensen GJ. Single-use vs. multi-use diamond rotary instruments. Clinicians Report. 2001;25(9):1-4. 

Pilcher ES, Tietge JD, Draughn RA. Comparison of cutting rates among single-patient-use and multiple-patient-use diamond burs. J Prosthodont. 2000;2(2):66-70. 

Siegel SC, von Fraunhofer JA. Assessing the cutting efficiency of dental diamond burs. J Am Dent Assoc. 1996;127(6):763-72.