IV push and wearing gloves

[Katniss88]

In nursing school they taught us to wear gloves while doing IV pushes or hooking up IV tubing to a patient. I just graduated in May and just recently started working as a nurse. While observing my preceptors I have seen that neither of them used gloves. I decided to ask why they didn't use gloves and I was told that since you aren't coming into contact with blood then it's not necessary. One of the nurses there graduated from the same nursing program I did and she also said she didn't use gloves. Does anyone still use gloves or is it just something instructors make you do while in nursing school?

[Altra, BSN, RN]

I know what he said. Regardless of the situation, gloves protect the patient from the potentially germy nurse.

So ... you are never in a patient's room without gloves? Ever?

[MunoRN, RN]

So ... you are never in a patient's room without gloves? Ever?

Oh all the time, I only wear gloves when I'm likely to pick up patient bacteria (beyond just being in the room and touching an IV pump or other things) or likely to transmit them to places where they shouldn't be.

[wooh, BSN, RN]

What I gathered from that slide show was that gloves prevent you picking them up so you don't spread them. An addition for those that aren't doing regular hand hygiene. Especially since I'm not finding anywhere else that talks about wearing them to protect the patient. We gown and glove in contact rooms so we don't pick up whatever, just in case we don't do a good job of hand hygiene (and to keep it off our clothes, etc.).

I am just not at all convinced gloves protect patients from anything that hand hygiene doesn't already protect them from better.

[MunoRN, RN]

What I gathered from that slide show was that gloves prevent you picking them up so you don't spread them. An addition for those that aren't doing regular hand hygiene. Especially since I'm not finding anywhere else that talks about wearing them to protect the patient. We gown and glove in contact rooms so we don't pick up whatever, just in case we don't do a good job of hand hygiene (and to keep it off our clothes, etc.).

I am just not at all convinced gloves protect patients from anything that hand hygiene doesn't already protect them from better.

The slide referred to using gloves to prevent spreading infection in addition to hand hygiene, not as a substitute for it.

One thing to keep in mind about hand hygiene is that it doesn't sterilize your hands, it only knocks down the bacterial load by a percentage, albeit a large percentage, but still a percentage. If bacteria that you pick up ends up on your gloves, which then get thrown away, that's much less work for hand washing to deal with since you're starting handwashing with far fewer bacteria on your hands. The same hand hygiene won't lower a bacterial count down as much if your starting out with 100,000 bacteria compared to 100.

[wooh, BSN, RN]

So what about all the bacteria growing in the stew UNDERNEATH the gloves? I'm only knocking those down by a percentage as well.

I'm not aiming to sterilize my hands with hand hygiene. If I was going for sterile, I'd go for sterile gloves. My hands obviously aren't sterile. But neither are non-sterile gloves.

[mgp6]

So what about all the bacteria growing in the stew UNDERNEATH the gloves? I'm only knocking those down by a percentage as well.

At least they're underneath the gloves. And that's why you also wash your hands on your way out of a patient's room.

[canoehead, BSN, RN]

Wooh, this is a debate that goes on ad infinitum. I agree with you, but want to warn you to give up before you make yourself bald. I worked an infectious disease unit before we had nonsterile gloves on the unit at all- just handwashing after every patient contact. We had the LOWEST crossinfection rate in the hospital, and kept the immune deficiency kids on the same unit. Nurses would be pregnant, assigned immune deficient kids AND infectious kids, and nobody thought a thing about it. But the new nurses don't have that experience behind them, so they think regular handwashing is as effective as nursing voodoo.

Folks, gloves were brought in because people weren't washing their hands. Handwashing works EXCEPT if the skin is broken and there is a way for germs to invade before you get to that sink. Would you take your clothes to the dry cleaner if you could run them through your washer with lots of soap and agitation...no...they won't get cleaner, and may actually get exposed to more germs. Same as gloving. Gloves are great when you need them, but you don't need them all the time.

I have trouble when I'm in a trauma gloved, and sweaty, I have to remove contaminated gloves, but I can't get new ones on because my hands are moist. How do you get past that problem...with no time to air dry.

[SaoirseRN]

I have trouble when I'm in a trauma gloved, and sweaty, I have to remove contaminated gloves, but I can't get new ones on because my hands are moist. How do you get past that problem...with no time to air dry.

I know!! Use hand sanitizer. The alcohol evaporates quickly and you can get back in gloves sooner.