FAQ
We provide one-on-one consultation to ensure the highest quality service in the water testing industry.
DentiSafe is a North Carolina-owned, full-service water testing company with a mission to educate those serving in the dental field. We provide one-on-one consultation to ensure the highest quality service in the water testing industry.
There are potentially severe health and legal risks for not testing your waterlines. Just because you can’t see a problem doesn’t mean there isn’t a threat hiding in your water supply. Regularly testing your waterlines helps protect the health of your patients. It protects the health of your dental staff — the ones with the greatest exposure to bacterial infections in your waterlines. And that helps minimize lost time for sick days in your office.
But regular testing — using methods approved by the EPA — helps mitigate your legal exposure in court, as well. Cases like the lawsuits pending (for almost a decade, now) again Children’s Dental Group in Anaheim, CA may end up settling for damages in the $100 million range. Compared with all the risks, the cost of regular, effective waterline testing is well worth it.
The ADA statement on dental unit waterlines is as follows, “the CDC recommends that dental unit waterlines used in non surgical procedures measure less than or equal to 500 colony forming units of heterotrophic bacteria per 1 ml of water. Which is the standard set for drinking water by the Environmental Protection Agency(EPA)”.
We recommend following the Dental Unit manufacturer’s IFUs for maintaining and monitoring the dental unit waterlines. That’s a minimum of once per quarter. You also may contact us directly for a no-charge consultation to talk about the best practices and needs for your clinic.
There are many types of waterline tests available in the market today. Here are some of the most common, starting with the only method that’s approved by the EPA — R2A testing.
R2A Agar Test
R2A Agar tests, the gold standard in water testing for over 20 years, is a non-biased nutrient broth that allows bacteria to grow at body temperature, 35.5 degrees Celsius, over a five to seven-day period. This allowing fast-growing bacteria and slow-growing bacteria to mature as it is incubated.
When the test sample is received by a EPA-certified testing lab, after handling, transport, and relying on proper temperature control throughout the entire chain of custody, it is placed on a plate by a trained microbiologist. This encourages microbes to grow. After the appropriate incubation period the microbes are numerically counted, resulting in a colony forming unit (CFU) measurement standard.
One of the key differences and benefits of R2A Agar testings is that is exposes contamination of both fast- and slow-growing bacteria in your water supply. While incubating at body temperature, this testing method allows us to find data that is pertinent to the dental office and is relevant to what would harm a patient. The incubation method is the only EPA certified testing method.
Paddle Tests
Paddle testing is an in-office incubation testing method that allows samples to be taken and incubated at room temperature. After the sample is taken, it is placed on the nutrient screen of the paddle and is incubated for a period of 48 to 72 hours. After the incubation period, the CFUs or colonies that have formed on the paddle are quantified. This method is performed by, and quantified by, a dental office staff member, rather than a microbiologist.
Because it’s done in an uncertified lab setting, a number of influential factors come into play which can negatively impact the results and their validity. Was the test performed properly? Was it read correctly? Was it incubated for the correct amount of time? This in-office testing method only provides a rough range of CFUs after 48 to 72 hours incubation period.
Flow Cytometry
Flow Cytometry is a testing method that was designed for cancer research that looks at blood and bodily fluids, but is now being used in the water testing industry. Flow cytometry uses dye that attaches to proteins, and when vaporized, lasers are used to detect the dye that is shot across the sensor. It quantifies, in CFUs, the total amount of bacteria that is in the water source, whether they are live, injured, or dead.
This is a rapid test that can be performed in 24 hours or less without incubation. In this method a mathematical formula is used to assume the number of bacteria that is present in the water sample. The CFUs, therefore, are essentially an average of live and dead bacteria.
Although this method is being used in the dental industry, it was never designed to be used for testing water. It is looking at all bacteria present, rather than those that are harmful to the body or that would grow at body temperature. Flow cytometry is not an EPA-certified method. Its primary use is for pinpointing a single bacteria such as Legionella, in an instantaneous form where the data needs to be relayed back instantly.
Yes, we recommend testing at least once a year. The CDC’s website reports that, “health departments reported almost 7,500 cases of Legionnaires’ disease in the United States in 2017”.
This video shows how easy it is for Legionella bacteria to be spread through aerosol produced by equipment attached to the waterlines in your dental office.
There is an “aseptic” technique to collecting the water samples. Please refer to our “How to Video” on our website.
In our post results consultation we will work with you and your staff to correct the water problem. We will be with you every step of the way until the problem is corrected. Our resources page has more information about how to handle this situation.
No, these results are confidential and we will not share them without your consent.
Our goal is to have the results back to you within a week of plating the samples.
We will send the results via email and follow that up with a conference call with one of our water testing representatives.
There will be a prepaid overnight shipping label included in our testing kit.
The shipping is included in the cost of the testing kit.