A Helping Hand With OR Gloving Challenges

Selecting an option that appeals to everyone and offers the right combination of comfort and feel is the goal.

Jesse Hixson, MSN, RN, CNOR, administrator for the Monroeville (Pa.) Surgery Center, expected orthopedic and cataract surgeons to be extremely discerning and opinionated about the surgical gloves they used.

What was a bit surprising to him, however, was the premium that pain physicians placed on the quality and tactile feel of the gloves his center purchased. “I learned just how important feel was when it came to them pushing the needle in for pain injections,” he says. “These physicians needed that dexterity more than some of the other service lines.”

Therein lies one of the major challenges inherent in equipping your staff with the right gloving options: Different providers have different needs and keeping everyone happy is a challenge for even the most seasoned surgical leaders.

Feedback needed

Mr. Hixson approaches this challenge on two fronts. First, he incorporates the gloving preferences into the center’s staff meetings, open forums where staff discuss which gloves are working well and which ones aren’t.

Then, he follows up with outreach to department leaders. “I hit up each of my staff members who oversee a service line and ask them to get feedback from their surgeons and bring it back to me on which gloves are working well and which ones they don’t like,” he says. “Then we’re able to bring all that info back to our leadership team, including our medical director.”

Carson McCafferty, MSN, RN, CNOR, CSSM, CSRN, clinical director at Eye 35 ASC in Schertz, Texas, also works diligently to take all of her staff’s glove preferences into consideration when making purchasing decisions. “The doctors have personal preferences that we accommodate whenever possible,” she says, adding that surgical techs also have strong opinions on how the texture of specific gloves works for them.

Technological advances

While providers may have their own personal and sometimes subjective preferences when it comes to surgical gloves, there are absolutely some objective standards every gloving vendor with which you partner should be able to meet.

First and foremost is quality. Innovations in technology have allowed vendors to produce gloves that are worlds above what providers used in the past in terms of grip capabilities, feel and durability.

Having the right fit is important. If the gloves are too loose, you lose some gripping and dexterity, but if they’re too tight, you can get pain from compression.
Carson McCafferty, MSN, RN, CNOR, CSSM, CSRN

“Quality matters,” says Mr. Hixson. “During the trial, you want to break down the gloves and look at the comfort and the thickness, because different specialties have different sensitivity needs.”

Indeed, each of your facility’s specialties play a pivotal role in the selection process, as gloves serve different purposes depending on the service line. “Ortho requires thicker gloves with more texture, whereas neurosurgery and ophthalmology need finer gloves,” says Ms. McCafferty. “It’s trial and error until you find the right fit for your staff and the services you provide.”

Ms. McCafferty agrees with Mr. Hixson about the role quality plays in selecting the right surgical glove, a metric that often comes down to several factors. “Glove dexterity is what you want in a dependable product,” she says, adding that if the glove is too slippery it’s unsafe, but if it’s too thick it’s difficult to use for dexterity purposes such as gripping and sensitivity.

Comfort and feel are right up there on the list of important features, and glove size matters a good deal, too. “Having the right fit is important,” she says. “If the gloves are too loose, you lose some gripping and dexterity, but if they’re too tight, you can get pain from compression.”

“You want a glove that gets the job done and doesn’t leave staffs’ hands hurting or surgeons complaining about them being too tight in the fingers,” says Mr. Hixson, adding product quality and vendor dependability must go hand in hand (no pun intended). “You need to know you’re going to get the product when you order it and that the integrity of the packaging is intact,” he says. “When you put the glove on, you need to know your fingers aren’t going to go through it.”

PPE and the pandemic

Pre-pandemic, maintaining inventory levels was rarely an issue for facilities that had established long-term relationships with trusted vendors. However, just as it did with virtually every other aspect of daily life, COVID-19 upended surgical leaders’ notions of a healthy supply chain.

Both Mr. Hixson and Ms. McCafferty struggled to get product during the pandemic and, as a result, wound up trialing vendors they wouldn’t have otherwise. “We had to switch manufacturers just because the other vendor couldn’t supply us,” says Mr. Hixson. While it was a bit chaotic, his staff wound up trialing a number of different glove styles and vendors and stuck with the company that was able to take the headache out of purchasing and procurement. The experience also strengthened one of Mr. Hixson’s beliefs about what you should expect from a glove supplier. “You need to develop a relationship with that vendor,” he says. OSM

Note: This three-part article series is supported by Ansell.