Glove Use & Hand Hygiene Go Hand in Hand

You can’t wear gloves without practicing proper hand hygiene

When used correctly, gloves are a vital part of personal protective equipment (PPE). However, there are many occasions when gloves are not needed and hand hygiene is completely effective in protecting you and your patients.
It is important to highlight that gloves should not be routinely worn “just in case”. (1) It is important to highlight that gloves do not provide complete protection against hand contamination. Therefore, hand hygiene remains essential to guarantee hand decontamination after glove removal. (2)

A false sense of security

Gloves can be hand hygiene’s worst enemy. The use of gloves does not replace the need for cleaning the hands. Although many believe that gloves remove the need for practicing hand hygiene, they actually require you to wash your hands more. Hand hygiene must always be practiced before donning and doffing gloves as it is a critical step in the safe use of PPE. Wearing gloves is perceived as a significant risk factor for poor hand hygiene compliance and germ transmission. (3) They create a false sense of security that the hands are clean, but this is not the case.

When to wear gloves

Many people decide to wear gloves “just in case”. This is because there is a lot of uncertainty as to whether gloves offer protection for people during their day to day activities. But it’s important to remember that gloves carry the virus the same way as the hands.

Within healthcare, the choice of wearing gloves should depend on the risk assessment of the task, the suitability of the gloves, and any risks to the patient/healthcare worker. (1) Gloves should be worn for example before a sterile procedure or when anticipating contact blood, body fluids, secretions, excretions and items visibly soiled by body fluids. But once again, this should not be considered a substitute for hand hygiene. See below the WHO glove pyramid which helps to aid decision making on when to wear and not wear gloves:

Source: WHO Glove use information leaflet (2)

SureWash

Hands must be cleaned the right way at the right times. The same goes for wearing gloves; they need to be worn at the right times and donned and doffed correctly. SureWash delivers the practical side of hand hygiene training through teaching the WHO technique. However, we also have a function to deliver theory on hygiene and infection control subject matters. Through our lesson and quiz section on our training units, facilities can easily upload content regarding the use of gloves. This ensures the workers receive short learning sessions to address any gaps in learning.

All training data is then stored in the cloud for administrators to track and asses users learning progress over a period of time. It is a complete solution for facilities delivering hand hygiene training as it is convenient and helps reduce the risk of infections.

To learn more about our training, please get in touch through https://surewash.com/contact-us/