Breaking the Chain: Mastering Infection Control & Protecting More Than Smiles: Data Security for Dental Practices, February 8, 2027

About Amanda Hill

Amanda Hill, BSDH, RDH, CDIPC, is an enthusiastic speaker, innovative consultant, and award-winning author.  A sought-after thought leader contributing invaluable and inspiring insights into the current trends in dentistry. She brings over 30 years of clinical dental hygiene and now enthusiastically educates the dental industry. Amanda has authored over one hundred articles, bringing clarity to hot topics in dentistry. Recipient of the Association for Dental Safety’s Emerging Infection Control Leader award, she is affectionately known as the Waterline Warrior. An active participant with the advisory board for RDH magazine, Dentistry IQ, and the Association for Dental Safety’s Infection Control In Practice Editorial Review Board and membership committee, Amanda strives to make topics in dentistry accurate, accessible, and fun! She can be reached at www.amandahillrdh.com and AmandaHillRDH@gmail.com

Course Description

Ensuring infection control compliance can be challenging for many practices.

Staying compliant with infection control protocols is one of the most critical—and complex—responsibilities in dental practice today. From keeping up with evolving OSHA regulations and CDC guidelines to ensuring thorough team training, waterline maintenance, and proper sterilization, the demands are high and ever-changing. Add in cost management and effective documentation, and it’s easy to see how practices can feel overwhelmed.

But noncompliance isn’t just risky—it can be devastating. The consequences include potential patient or team infections, legal and financial repercussions, and lasting damage to your practice’s reputation. This course provides practical strategies and updates to help dental teams navigate infection control with confidence, protect those in their care, and maintain the trust of the communities they serve.

Learning Objectives

1. Define infection prevention principles and recommendations for dental health care settings

2. Recognize how to prevent transmission of infectious agents through standard precautions, with a review of cross-contamination prevention, hand hygiene, respiratory hygiene, and cough etiquette.

3. Employ standard operating procedures to remain in compliance with regulation, which includes PPE and practitioner safety, sharps safety, safe injection practices, and environmental controls.

4. Formulate a successful dental unit waterline protocol, including dental unit water quality and waterline testing.

5. Manage a successful infection control plan that includes sterilization of patient care items to prevent disease transmission.

About Shayne Yonce

Shayne Yonce brings more than 30 years of information technology experience, including supporting dental practices since the beginning of chairside digital technology. His career has been shaped by a lifelong curiosity for technology, beginning with his first exposure to computers in a fifth-grade summer school class. Since then, he has developed deep expertise in the hardware, systems and technical infrastructure that keep organizations operating. In his role with Adams Brown Technology, Shayne focuses on bringing the right people and resources together to resolve technical challenges quickly and effectively. He understands that technology issues can create unnecessary downtime, frustration and expense when businesses are left to navigate them alone. By coordinating the appropriate expertise and helping clients work through complex situations, Shayne helps organizations minimize disruption and reach practical outcomes. He also enjoys sharing his knowledge with others and helping clients better understand the technology they rely on every day.

About Brendan Giesick

Brendan Giesick has worked in the technology and risk space since 2018 and leads the strategic growth of Adams Brown Technology. His role includes aligning technology and cybersecurity solutions with market needs, developing strategic partnerships and helping organizations make informed decisions about risk, resilience and long-term growth. Brendan works closely with business leaders to understand how their organizations operate, where sensitive data is stored and which systems are most critical to daily operations. This perspective allows him to connect data security with broader business priorities, including continuity, regulatory responsibility, financial risk and customer trust. For dental practices, this means helping leadership understand how technology decisions affect the protection of patient information, the reliability of clinical systems and the practice’s ability to continue operating during a disruption. Brendan’s approach is centered on making cybersecurity practical, understandable, and directly connected to the health of the organization.

Course Description

This course provides dental professionals with a practical understanding of today’s cybersecurity and data privacy challenges. Participants will learn how to protect patient information, comply with HIPAA and PCI requirements, recognize common cyber threats, secure dental technologies, and respond effectively to security incidents. The course also explores the growing role of AI, vendor risk, cyber insurance, and the financial impact of data breaches while providing a practical roadmap for strengthening security, improving resilience, and protecting both patients and the long-term value of the practice.

Learning Objectives

• Understanding Data Security: Define PHI, ePHI, PII, payment information and the dental records that require protection.
• Why Dental Practices Are Targeted: Explain why valuable patient data, limited security resources and operational dependence on technology make practices attractive targets.
• Common Cybersecurity Threats: Review phishing, ransomware, stolen credentials, insider threats, human error and lost devices.
• The Dental Data Lifecycle: Follow patient information from intake and treatment through imaging, billing, communication, storage and disposal.
• HIPAA Compliance: Cover the privacy, security, documentation and breach-notification responsibilities of dental practices.
• PCI Compliance: Explain how practices should securely process payments and minimize exposure to cardholder data.
• Data Security Best Practices: Introduce different tools, policies, and operational approaches to help with data hygiene.
• Protecting Dental Technology: Address security risks involving practice-management systems, imaging equipment, chairside computers, mobile devices and remote access.
• Backup and Business Continuity: Explain how reliable, protected and regularly tested backups keep the practice operating after an outage or attack.
• Employee Security Awareness: Show how training, clear procedures and good daily habits reduce preventable security incidents.
• Vendor and Third-Party Risk: Review how software providers, cloud platforms, payment processors and other partners can create additional exposure.
• AI in Dental Practices: Explore how AI is improving clinical, administrative and patient-communication workflows while creating new data-handling risks.
• The Economics of Data Security: Discuss the realities of paying for data security, how AI is effecting this, and compare the cost of prevention with downtime, recovery expenses, legal exposure, patient attrition and damage to practice value.
• Incident Response and Breach Management: Outline how to detect, contain, investigate, report and recover from a security incident.
• Cyber Insurance: Explain common coverage requirements, exclusions, deductibles and the importance of accurate security documentation.
• Building a Security Roadmap: Provide practical priorities dental practices can implement over the next 60, 90 and 180 days.