COVID-19 Impact on Disposable Gloves and Strategies to Optimize Supply

t’s no surprise that in recent weeks every industry and every person has been impacted in some way by COVID-19. If you are in the health and medical industry, you’ve likely experienced difficulty with keeping supplies, like disposable gloves, replenished and in stock.
 
We’ve rounded up some helpful tips and strategies to help you make the most of your disposable glove supply while navigate this strange time.
 

• Reserve sterile gloves for necessary surgical and sterile procedures only.
• Consider using disposable gloves past their designated shelf-life (typically provided by the glove manufacturer) in situations where you’re not exposed to pathogens, like training.
• Use non-sterile disposable gloves for any task that you will come in contact with bodily fluids.
• If your supply really dwindles, you can consider using non-health care gloves, such as food service gloves or industrial grade nitrile gloves. Keep in mind these should only be used in situations where you’re not exposed to pathogens.
• When using disposable medical gloves, you may consider extended wear. This would be appropriate when caring for patients who have the same confirmed cases of an infectious disease. In a crisis, you may keep the same pair of disposable gloves on when switching between patients or tasks. Keep in mind, during extended wear, you should be sanitizing the gloves in between tasks and patients.
• To cleanse your disposable gloves in between tasks, there are three different types of sanitizing methods: use an alcohol-based hand sanitizer, use soap and water, or use a diluted bleach solution.