4. Needle sticks and sharps injuries are
uncommon events. Nearly 400,000 hospital healthcare work-
ers annually sustain a percutaneous injury. Most of these injuries
occur in the perioperative setting, a particularly high-risk environment
for needle stick and sharps injuries because we work for prolonged
periods in the presence of large quantities of blood and potentially
infectious body fluids, we frequently handle sharp devices and we
coordinate the passing of those devices between the team. All of these
factors put surgical teams at a much higher risk. And did you know
that most sticks and sharps injuries are suffered by nurses and techs
while passing, disassembling or disposing of sharps devices, rather
than by the surgeons who are using them?
The good news: Double gloving by itself may protect the wearer's
skin from needle sticks because breaches are more likely to occur to
the outer gloves than the inner gloves. That was the finding of a 24-
month study, "Exploring the Benefits of Double Gloving During
Surgery," which was published in the March 2012 AORN Journal and
examined the effect of double gloving with inner indicator gloves on
the durability of inner gloves and the detection of glove tears or perfo-
rations during surgery.
5. Wearing 2 pairs of gloves will cause a dan-
gerous decrease in tactile sensitivity. Yes, there
might be some loss of tactile sensitivity when double gloves are worn.
You can exercise some clinical discretion here. The AORN recommen-
dation states that when indicated by a clinical need for high tactile
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February 2015 | O U T PAT I E N TS U R G E R Y. N E T
Regular glove changes during a procedure can reduce
the incidence of perforation and contamination.
