Griffith University at Southport on the Gold Coast has upgraded its new dental teaching facility with seven of the latest state-of-the-art W&H Assistina 3x3 handpiece maintenance units. The university was one of the first organisations in Australia to take delivery of the new Assistina 3x3 model, which is the only unit to offer a validated three step process of internal and external cleaning and lubrication in a single cycle.

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Figure 1. Griffith University has streamlined its instrument processing with seven new Assistina 3x3 handpiece maintenance units to
provide a validated cleaning process and speed reprocessing of handpieces.
Griffith University streamlines
handpiece reprocessing with new 3x3
Griffith University at South-port
on the Gold Coast has
upgraded its new dental
teaching facility with
seven of the latest state-of-
the-art W&H Assistina 3x3 handpiece
maintenance units.
Griffith University fulfils a vital role
in supporting Oral Health Therapists and
dental students at Griffith’s Parklands
Campus in Queensland.
Griffith University Dental Assistants’
Team Leader, Tash Pasfield, said literally
hundreds of handpieces were processed
per shift to keep up with demand from
Griffith’s public patient and student
dental clinics.
Griffith was one of the first organisa-tions
in Australia to take delivery of the
new Assistina 3X3 model, which is the
only unit to offer a validated three-step
process of internal and external cleaning
and lubrication in a single cycle.
Each Assistina 3X3 unit can clean and
lubricate up to three handpieces in just
6.5 minutes, making it much faster than
earlier units. Special adapters fit turbines,
straight and contra-angle handpieces, air
motors and air-driven scalers, which can
be cleaned together in the one unit.
Ms Pasfield said the new Assistina
3X3’s were very easy and intuitive to
operate with a simple icon-based push
button interface. The unit flashes green
during each cycle and has a “door
open” light and warning lights indi-cating
low cleaning and lubricating
fluid levels.
The special W&H ActiveFluid
cleaning solution and W&H’s patented
F1 Service Oil is contained in convenient
self-contained cartridges at the base of
the Assistina 3X3 unit and last for hun-dreds
of cycles. This system is far quicker,
more effective and more economical than
manual handpiece cleaning and main-tenance
using pressurised spray cans of
cleaning solution and lubricant.
The Assistina 3X3 replaces the ear-lier
W&H Assistina 301 Plus and offers
the advantage of a valildated process for
44 Australasian Dental Practice July/August 2014

2. Figure 2. Griffith University Dental Assistants’ Team Leader, Tash Pasfield and A-dec Territory Manager, Brian Gardiner, with the
seven new Assistina 3x3 handpiece maintenance units in operation at Griffith University.
full internal and external cleaning and
also lubrication of multiple dental hand-pieces,
turbines, air-driven scalers and
electric motors.
When fully deployed, Griffith’s fleet of
seven Assistina 3X3 units can process 21
handpieces at a time, greatly streamlining
throughput in the busy sterilisation room,
which includes six Lisa fully automatic B
Class bench-top sterilisers and two hos-pital-
sized sterilisers.
The Assistina 3x3’s validation of
cleaning effectiveness is proven from
a validation report by Wasser Hygiene
Unwelt - an independent and accredited
test authority based in Europe. The soiling
applied to the test handpiece was a protein
count of 187μg - 750μg per tested part.
The maximum soiling recovered post-cycle
corresponded to less than 4μg per
tested part. The validation report is avail-able
from www.wh.com.
W&H Territory Manager - Australia
and New Zealand, Chris Jobson, said the
Assistina 3X3 had distinct advantages
over thermo-washer disinfectors in rela-tion
to both throughput and costs.
“Thermo disinfectors are expensive
pieces of equipment and have a relatively
low volume throughput per cycle when
it comes to accommodating handpieces.
This would have made total reliance on
thermo-washer disinfectors unsuitable in
such a busy environment as Griffith Uni-versity
because of the sheer volume of
handpieces reprocessed on a daily basis.”
On the other hand, the new Assistina
3X3 is perfectly suited to this task as
three instruments can be fully cleaned
and lubricated in just 6 minutes and 30
seconds using a process validated to the
ISO EN 158831 standard for performing
the test soiling and test methods.
For more information, call A-dec Australia
on 1800-225-010 or see www.wh.com.
Reference
1. ISO EN 15883 applies to and is drafted for cleaning
units and disinfectors (thermo washer disinfectors).
As there are no standards relating to the contamina-tion
of turbines, straight and contra angle handpieces,
W&H has decided to use this standard as the basis for
performing the test soiling and test methods for testing
the Assistina 3x3/3x2).
July/August 2014 Australasian Dental Practice 45