BSI Violation

C.T.E.M.R. said:
I wear gloves for almost every call, even if i know i will not have PT contact.
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Waste of equipment. 50 gloves are around 8-12 dollars. Bring them, sure. Wear them, no.
 
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brentoli said:
Waste of equipment. 50 gloves are around 8-12 dollars. Bring them, sure. Wear them, no.
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Geez, where do you shop? A box of 100 pairs of Nitrile gloves is around 5 bucks. Considering health care cost for an EMT that contracts a pathogen, 5 cents for a pair of gloves is cheap insurance.
 
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Sandog said:
Geez, where do you shop? A box of 100 pairs of Nitrile gloves is around 5 bucks. Considering health care cost for an EMT that contracts a pathogen, 5 cents for a pair of gloves is cheap insurance.
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Most boxes are one hundred gloves, so fifty pairs :p Just saying
 
At what point does BSI become paranoia?
 
Sandog said:
Geez, where do you shop? A box of 100 pairs of Nitrile gloves is around 5 bucks. Considering health care cost for an EMT that contracts a pathogen, 5 cents for a pair of gloves is cheap insurance.
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High risk gloves come in boxes of 50.
Still, my point is that if you walk in knowing you wont have patient contact (as the poster stated) why waste the gloves?
 
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i did say even if i know i will not have any PT contact, but then again you cant be sure if you will or not. My DEPT tells us to wear our gloves, they don't care about the cost. I'd rather be prepared than not. I had an experience where i was just filling in info on the computer during transport and ended up having to hold a PT's arm for the medic, and i didn't have gloves and they were across the rig, so now gloves every call, and even not having contact with the patient, i might end up having to get supplies for my partner.
 
brentoli said:
High risk gloves come in boxes of 50.
Still, my point is that if you walk in knowing you wont have patient contact (as the poster stated) why waste the gloves?
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Fair enough. Knowing no patient contact, I would also opt to not wear gloves.
 
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Veneficus said:
At what point does BSI become paranoia?
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Paranoia denotes an irrational fear, perhaps not the term I would use, cautious maybe, but not paranoid. There have been studies concerning the efficacy of BSI and the results seem to validate that caution is warranted.

http://jama.ama-assn.org/cgi/reprint/270/3/350.pdf
http://wonder.cdc.gov/wonder/prevguid/p0000419/p0000419.asp

Considering the minor inconvenience imposed by PPE practices, why not err on the side of caution?

I would be willing to entertain the idea of not using BSI if there were compelling evidence to the contrary of the CDC recommendations.
 
Sandog said:
Paranoia denotes an irrational fear, perhaps not the term I would use, cautious maybe, but not paranoid. There have been studies concerning the efficacy of BSI and the results seem to validate that caution is warranted.

http://jama.ama-assn.org/cgi/reprint/270/3/350.pdf
http://wonder.cdc.gov/wonder/prevguid/p0000419/p0000419.asp

Considering the minor inconvenience imposed by PPE practices, why not err on the side of caution?

I would be willing to entertain the idea of not using BSI if there were compelling evidence to the contrary of the CDC recommendations.
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I had a look at your links,and noticed in the first one that there were a considerable amount of nurses in the credits.

But that aside, it raises other questions. Not to mention the original, when does the reduction of a potential exposure stop being cautious and becomes paranoia?

Undoubtably a barrier device will reduce exposure. But how many are significant exposures?

Is the money spent on "precautionary" BSI even remotely comparable to the risk of infection?

While it seems intuitive that the reduction of exposure would reduce the incidence of infection, considering that the CDC recommends hand washing as "established in other papers" as first and foremost, can it be argued that perhaps the use of gloves may largely be superfluous?

Considering the amount of patient contact, do we see the potential for infection through perhaps a rather narrow view of what types of patients we believe are a majority of emergency patients rather than the number that actually are?

What about nonemergent patients?

Has anyone compared the rate of infection for say outpatient private PCPs vs. ICU providers?

I am not arguing against BSI, I am pondering if there is a reasonable rate of return on the way it is used.

We don't goggle, mask, and gown up on every patient. What about wearing gloves "just in case" somehow offers more protection?

Afterall, we don't wear gloves every time we touch something in the rig. Which we know is an exposure risk. Nor the phone, nor the radio, nor the surfaces in the hospital. Otherwise we would be wearing gloves constantly. Why doesn't anybody advocate this?
 
Did you maybe say something like, "I noticed you took your bloody gloves off with your teeth. I hope you were aware that's what you did. Just letting you know."

No blame but also making clear that people notice.
 
My take on BSI is as EMS providers we go way overboard.

I used to be "Glove up on every patient!" but not anymore. I don't buy that it's for the patient's protection, when 99.9% of the time we have nothing on us that they can't pick up at the grocery store. Yes, we deal with sick people, but there are sick people walking around in everyday society and I for one am crazy vigilant about washing my hands inbetween patients.

If the patient isn't bleeding or oozing and I'm touching dry, unbroken skin, I may not glove up. I have even, gasp, taken a blood sugar without the use of gloves.

If I have a patient with a known suppressed immune system or on neutropenic precautions (which, as I am an IFT medic, I will find out in report or in the chart) I will glove up, because it is truly for their protection.

I've even touched a MRSA patient without gloves. I know.. I'm daring, aren't i?
 
OK so i know my previous post said i glove up every patient, well my last shift, i had 3 calls and no gloves, Didnt make sense to wear em', no blood, fluids etc. I am starting to believe that bsi is over used.
 
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