ASC Spotlight - Q2 2019 - 13

GLOVES

Do Disinfectants Present a Risk for the
Safety of Medical Gloves?
Numerous institutions and authors have investigate the "possibility to disinfect medical gloves"
and urgently warn against this as a general practice in clinical routine. Sempermed informs
about the risks, recommendations, and regulations.
In times of increasing nosocomial infections (infections acquired in hospital),
resistance to antibiotics, mechanization, and lawsuits by patients, measures
to break the chain of infection are more important than ever before. The safest
passive infection protection is to create a distance (non-contamination) with
barrier measures; i.e., use of gloves or instruments (non-touch technique).
The most effective active infection protection is hand disinfection, with which
about 30% of nosocomial infections can be prevented if it is done properly.
In hectic clinical routine, however, hand hygiene is frequently neglected-the
compliance rate is 30-59%.
In order to save time with hand disinfection when changing gloves or patients, it
has become a common habit to keep the disposable medical gloves on and spray
them with disinfectant, or to perform hygienic hand disinfection without taking off
the gloves. Such practices can have disastrous results that most people are not
aware of. The following information should provide enlightenment.
Hand Disinfection
Hands are the most common vehicle for pathogens-
about 80% of infections are transmitted by the hands.
Fingerprint cultures have shown that the same pathogen
is still detectable after five hand contacts. In order to
protect yourself and others from an infection, routine
hand disinfection before and after every patient contact,
after (potential) microbial contamination and immediately
before and after using gloves, is required. Because of
the significantly lower effectiveness and great skin stress,
washing your hands is not an alternative and indicated
only in case of visible soiling. Up to 75% of hands can
be colonized with transient micro-organisms (airborne
microbes). Hygienic hand disinfection decimates the
transient skin flora and is an imperative especially on the
wards and in outpatient areas. Surgical (preoperative)
hand disinfection, on the other hand, aims to eliminate
virtually all microbes on the skin, including the resident
19MS4306

skin flora, in order to prevent any skin bacteria from
penetrating the surgical wound with sweat in the case of
glove lesions.
Implementation and Errors
The EN standard rubbing methods are recommended for
disinfection. They provide application to the dry hands for
30 seconds (hygienic hand disinfection) or three minutes
(surgical hand disinfection) until the alcohol preparation
has dried completely. The most common deficits in
hand disinfection are too short, too rare, and incomplete
disinfection as well as inadequate ventilation of the
hands before putting on gloves. On average, 5.3 areas
per hand are missed, especially on the thumb (57%)
and the fingertips (35%). Alcohol residues on the hands
can evaporate in the occlusion of the gloves, and they
can cause skin damage and damage to the inner glove
material.
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ASC Spotlight - Q2 2019

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