According to the Centers for Disease Control, 51.4 million surgeries take place each year. That takes a lot of PPE!
For as many surgeries as you and your staff will perform this year, there’s an option for the PPE you choose to keep everyone safe. Choosing the right disposable protective equipment, impermeable PPE and patient transfer option is an unskippable first step.
So, let’s take a look at your options: from patient transfer to protective clothing and even OR protection and post-surgical covers for your patients. Get ready to dive in and discover what to try and what it might be time to avoid. By the end, you’ll feel more informed about making the right choices to keep yourself, your nurses, and your patients safer and drier.
Keeping Surgeons, Staff, and Patients Safe
In health care settings, choosing the right protective equipment is one of the first lines of defense against bloodborne pathogens, not to mention fluid-ruined scrubs and shoes.
Doctors and nurses often face risks from infectious agents and exposure to blood. The right patient transfer equipment and medical protective clothing can help prevent ergonomic injuries and the spread of infectious diseases.
Disposable medical protective clothing acts as a physical barrier, guarding against contact with blood and infectious materials. This clothing includes surgical masks, gowns, and gloves. These items cover skin and mucous membranes, keeping healthcare personnel safe.
Impermeable PPE simply lowers the risk of exposure to infectious diseases. Healthcare workers need full protection during surgical procedures. Plus, it’s not just a good idea or the right thing to do – it’s a legal requirement from OSHA.
Disposable Patient Transfer Sheets vs. Patient Transfer Boards
When it comes to patient transfer, safety is the main consideration, but comfort and ergonomics should be priorities, too.
Let’s compare ezGLIDE disposable patient transfer sheets to traditional patient transfer boards.
Safety and Infection Control:
- ezGLIDE Sheets: Provide complete protection against infections by keeping all the potentially hazardous biological material with the patient, no matter how many times they’re transferred between beds or rooms. These sheets are single-patient, not single-use: this means that one ezGLIDE sheet stays with your patient for the duration of their hospitalization. These sheets prevent direct contact and fluid penetration, reducing the risk of exposure to blood and infectious materials. This keeps healthcare workers and patients safe and dramatically reduces the spread of infectious diseases.
- Transfer Boards: Can carry germs if not sanitized properly. These boards require thorough cleaning and long wait times (15-30 minutes under wet disinfectant) to ensure infectious agents do not spread. This means that your healthcare facility will need to stock a lot of these boards in order to make sure each one spends the proper time under sanitation. Can you guarantee that every board has been correctly sanitized every time?
Ergonomics and Comfort:
- ezGLIDE Sheets: Lightweight and flexible, making them easy to use. They offer a smoother transfer experience for both healthcare personnel and patients. ezGLIDE sheets are designed with ergonomics in mind, and the correct positioning and lifting instructions are printed directly on each sheet. Plus, ezGLIDE sheets hang in a convenient dispenser on your procedure room walls, making it easy to grab and go when a patient needs to be transferred in a hurry.
- Transfer Boards: Rigid and often cumbersome. They might be uncomfortable for patients during the transfer. Due to the rigidity of these boards, nurses and technicians have to bend and squat in unnatural positions. Over time, this can lead to back, neck, shoulder, knee, and hip injuries.
Choosing the Right Disposable Protective Clothing
Your PPE and disposable medical protective clothing act as a barrier between your body (and scrubs… and shoes…) and potentially infectious materials like blood, urine, and other bodily fluids.
No matter which options you choose to protect yourself and your staff, make sure you’ve got the best protection by choosing PPE with the following specs:
- Impervious 2 ml or greater polyethylene blend to ensure total fluid impermeability.
- Meets ASTM’s F1671 test standards to ensure that the material has been tested and approved.
- Lightweight and disposable to make sure that your team actually likes and uses the PPE you stock.
- Anything that covers your shoes should be available in non-skid versions to avoid dangerous slips.
- One-size-fits-all technology reduces the time spent finding the right PPE for your body and the number of SKUs you’ll need to stock.
Using disposable medical protective clothing to prevent exposure to these potentially hazardous biological materials is non-negotiable, but with options ranging from shoe covers to full jumpsuits, which pieces of PPE are the most essential—and when?
Shoe Covers, Knee-Highs, and Leggings (Oh my!)
Medical shoe covers, knee-highs, and leggings have different roles in healthcare facilities.
Shoe covers protect shoes from contamination and help maintain cleanliness. They are ideal during medical tasks where floors may become contaminated, such as in operating rooms. Impermeable shoe covers, essentially, keep your HOKAs from getting totally trashed in wet surgeries.
Medical knee-highs extend up the leg, offering additional protection from splashes or spills. These are useful when there’s a risk of contact with liquids, like during urological procedures, while attending births, and any other especially wet procedure. Medical knee-highs will protect your shoes and your scrub bottoms up to the knee.
Disposable medical protective leggings cover the legs fully, providing maximum protection for high-risk exposure environments. These are typically used during major surgeries or when working with hazardous infectious agents.
Jumpsuits and Aprons
Disposable medical protective jumpsuits and aprons offer another layer of significant protection in a surgical setting.
Jumpsuits cover the entire body, providing complete protection against fluid penetration and infectious materials. They are typically used in high-risk areas, such as during complex surgeries or infectious disease outbreaks.
Aprons, on the other hand, cover the front of the body and are used in procedures where the main risk is from splashes or spills. Examples include minor surgeries or dental procedures.
When made from an impervious 2 ml polyethylene blend, jumpsuits and aprons act as strong physical barriers, ensuring the safety and hygiene of healthcare workers.
Covering the Rest – Literally
There’s more to protecting your staff and patients than just protective clothing. For example, our STA-DRI line includes shower cast protectors, pedal covers, and mattress sheets, premium products designed for maximum protection.
Shower cast protectors keep casts dry during showers, unlike traditional plastic bags that may leak. These can be especially helpful to provide to patients after surgery so that your hard work in casting their injury doesn’t end up badly damaged.
Back in the O.R., disposable, fluid-impermeable pedal covers protect against cross-contamination on medical device pedals, something common covers might not fully prevent. Nobody wants to clean bodily fluid out of an instrument pedal, so these covers can help you avoid it in the first place.
STA-DRI mattress sheets offer a completely waterproof layer to avoid fluid penetration, whereas regular sheets may allow leakage. Humans sweat, spill, and stain things—though it’s usually unintentional. Protective disposable mattress sheets protect tables and mattresses in the event of everyday accidents and aid in infection control, with features like:
- Soft, non-woven polyester
- Include impermeable polyethylene layer
- Fitted for complete protection plus simplified removal
- Intended for single-patient use
These specialized products provide superior protection and peace of mind.
Premium PPE vs. Bargain Bulk PPE
When it’s time to choose the right PPE for your healthcare facility or surgical center, there’s always a temptation to stick with what you’ve always used (even if no one likes it) because you know it fits into your budget and you can buy it in bulk.
Premium PPE, like STA-DRI and ezGLIDE, offers superior protection for healthcare workers and better safeguards against contact with blood, bodily fluids, and infectious agents.
They provide complete protection, including reliable, tested barriers against fluid penetration. On the other hand, bargain & bulk PPE might seem more cost-effective, but the Cost-Benefit Analysis might surprise you. Premium PPE lasts longer and performs better. It’s easier to don and doff, and it’s easier to stock. Premium PPE is OSHA-compliant and can help safeguard you and your facility against legal action.
Healthcare facilities should weigh these factors, considering the risk of exposure to infectious diseases versus budget constraints.
Try the Best PPE on the Market, Free
Sloan Medical, founded by a surgeon for the protection of surgeons, has been committed to protecting every healthcare professional and their patients from the threat of bloodborne pathogens and bodily fluids for over 40 years.
We’re still family-owned, and our PPE is still designed by surgeons for surgeons. We take pride in producing truly impervious and slip-resistant ISO medical-grade covers tested to provide the highest quality protection against fluids and contaminants.
Sloan Medical is confident that if you try our products, you’ll never go back. So, before you go, claim your free STA-DRI and ezGLIDE samples and see the difference for yourself.
