We all know how difficult it can be to convince staff to double-glove. We tell all new OR nurses and techs during their onboarding that double-gloving is a requirement at our facility. To drive the point home, new staffers must size themselves for double gloves during onboarding, while they perform their scrubbing competency.

We tell them it’s our policy here, and even more importantly, we explain why. We tell them double-gloving decreases their chances of being stuck, and that when they’re changing gloves out for a dirty procedure and want to go back to a sterile area, they can easily do it without having to rescrub, which saves time and boosts efficiency.

The result? We get buy-in (and have experienced no pushback) from our new hires. They understand it’s our normal practice, and they simply go with the flow from the start.

Kristi Olsen, RN, BSN
MercyOne Medical Center
Clinton, Iowa
[email protected]