This is a helpful checklist to help you and your employees wear and use your medical gloves properly:
When to wear gloves:
- When touching patient mucous membranes or non-intact skin.
- While performing phlebotomy and other vascular access procedures.
- When processing body fluid specimens.
- When performing finger sticks or heel sticks.
- When touching items contaminated with blood or body fluids.
- While treating lacerations, abrasions, and compound fractures.
- During patient care when the healthcare worker has hangnails, chapped hands, or other abrasions on the hands.
How to wear gloves:
- Wear gloves that fit properly. Place them to fit over your sleeve cuff.
- Before putting on gloves, check for tiny punctures, discoloration, and other physical defects.
- Do not use defective gloves.
- Remove gloves before handling non-contaminated items such as telephones and when leaving the area.
- Change gloves between patient contacts. Never wash or disinfect latex or vinyl gloves for reuse.
How to remove gloves without contamination:
- Grasp the outside of the glove with the opposite hand; peel off.
- Hold removed glove in glove hand.
- Slide fingers of ungloved hand under remaining glove at the wrist.
- Peel gloves over the first hand.
- Discard gloves in a waste container.
- Perform hand hygiene immediately after removing gloves.