The right glove for the right job at the right price: keeping gloves on hand

Healthcare Purchasing News, Feb, 2009 by Jeannie Akridge

Alecia Cooper, R.N., M.B.A., C.N.O.R., senior vice president of clinical services marketing for Medline industries, observed that "although there has been quite a bit of downward trending recently, there is still a lot of uncertainty with the future of exam glove prices and supply levels."

Medline's approach, noted Cooper, "to help keep cost increases to a minimum and to ensure adequate supply of gloves for our customers, we have decreased the size of our exam glove boxes. This has allowed us to be able to increase the amount of gloves sent with each shipment. It has also resulted in a decrease in packaging materials which has led to a reduction in waste. We have also worked to engineer some of our gloves so we can fit more in a box. Our new SensiCare Ice and Aloetouch Ice gloves come 200/bx (2,000/ cs) versus the standard 100/bx (1,000/cs)."

Kimberly-Clark also encourages facilities to look at smarter packaging options. "One of the simplest ways to reduce glove costs is by evaluating the current levels of space and waste that a facility's exam gloves are currently taking up," said Boothe.

"Kimberly-Clark's Sterling Nitrile exam gloves offer the added benefit of fleeing up precious storage space for critical items, and reducIng waste through innovative packaging technology," offered Boothe. "For example, a facility that uses 6,000 cases of standard exam gloves can save up to 33 percent space by switching to Sterling Nitrile exam gloves. This is due to the package configuration, which provides 1,500 gloves per case over the 1,000 gloves that standard packaging provides. That means the same safety stock of gloves can be kept, while freeing up valuable storage space for other critical healthcare items. If you also take into account the rising costs of disposal, $0.11 to $0.45 per pound, the financial and environmental savings really add up. Several of our larger Sterling customers who were previously using latex exam gloves are now preventing 100 tons of waste disposal each year just by converting to our product. This yields potential savings of $22,000 to $90,000 annually."

Indeed, nitrile is becoming increasingly more popular as a non-latex alternative for exam gloves.

"A high quality nitrile exam glove is comparable in protection to a high quality latex glove," said Boothe. "Additionally, nitrile is highly chemical resistant, thus enhancing the level of protection to the healthcare worker. Further, standardizing on nitrile gloves eliminates confusion and the risk of accidental latex glove use in situations where the patient or treating professional is latex-sensitive."

"Clinical studies show that vinyl exam gloves fail in use more than one-third of the time," added Boothe. "They have limited elasticity, tensile strength and durability. They're not suitable for use with many chemicals, cause hand fatigue and are perceived as hot and less than optimal tactile sensitivity."

"[Nitrile gloves] are recommended for applications where gloves are worn for a longer period of time or exposed to greater stress," said Medline's Cooper. "Nitrile gloves also have chemical barrier properties that give them an advantage when handling certain drugs or chemicals."