Sterile gloves during procedures

[brown678]

i'm a nursing student and will be graduating with my adn in 6 weeks. during my preceptorship, my preceptor insisted on wearing sterile gloves during procedures such as removing staples and removing a jp drain. to me this seems unnecessary and is an additional cost to the patient. i am curious what other rn's think about this.

[NicuGal, MSN, RN]

We don't charge the patient for gloves, so it would only cost the unit for their par stock. When we mess with dressings we tend to wear sterile gloves, but that is for our population.

[classicdame, MSN, EdD]

probably just a habit. Or maybe she is a germaphobe. You do not have to adopt her practice of course.

[caroladybelle, BSN, RN]

In my pt population, my pts have extended periods of virtually no immunity. Such as WBCs

We use sterile gloves and alcohol wipes to open/close tubing attachments to central lines/IVs. No claves while inpt due to infection risk. Sterile gloves when removing significant amounts of sutures/staples, and sites get cleaned before and after removal. sterile gloves for venipuncture/IV starts.

Pts do not get charged for gloves as they are stocked in the servers.

A lot depends on your pt population. Were they high risk for infection?

[KyPinkRN]

sterile gloves for doing procedures such as removing sutures and such is a waste of time. the wound itself is dirty (aka germy) i used to work on a "wound care" med/surg unit... multiple dressing changes on many patients a day. we didn't use sterile gloves for that. think about the condition of the wound, most of the time a patient with staples or sutures by the time you are ready to remove them they are open to air. the air itself is not sterile, nor is the bed sheets or anything else that wound is touching. i would however recommend using strict sterile procedure for things like central/picc dressing changes, inserting a foley etc. these are instances when contamination can mean major complications. for regular iv starts, accessing saline lock, and dressing changes regular clean gloves are sufficient.