SBIR, Phase I, Preventing healthcare-acquired, antibiotic-resistant bacterial infections with single dispense gloves.

PROJECT SUMMARY Every year, nearly 2 million patients in the United States alone incur healthcare-acquired infections (HAI) resulting in 98,000 American deaths a year. The rise of antibiotic resistant infections further causes alarm as these infections increase morbidity and mortality since they are unresponsive to standard treatments. HAI are acquired upon receiving care from a variety of healthcare settings including hospitals, urgent care sites, primary care offices, long-term care facilities and from other patient – healthcare interactions. In addition to the societal costs, HAI and AR infections have severe economic consequences of approximately $55 billion per year in the United States from prolonged hospital stays, high-priced alternative treatments, time in ICU or isolation, and loss of productivity. Although hand washing and gloves have been described as some of the most effective deterrents to HAI, these infections are still prevalent. Identifying the source of transmission of HAI is critical to controlling the spread of antibiotic resistant infections. Our preliminary data demonstrates that nonsterile disposable gloves (NSDG) are a potential source of infectious transmission. NSDG gloves/glove boxes are packaged by randomly inserting 100 gloves into a box, which forces healthcare workers (HCW) to reach into the box to pull out a single glove, sometimes obtaining 1 and sometimes obtaining 4 gloves. The excess gloves are then put back into the box (increasing potential contamination) or disposed of (increasing glove waste). Additionally, HCW must separate and orient the gloves to don, most often resulting in touching all parts of the gloves, including the fingers and palms of the gloves, the very parts that will be interacting with patient wounds, burns, central lines, catheters, etc. Donning of gloves also exposes the gloves to hand microbiota, which are not harmful on the surface of the skin, but can lead to HAI if introduced into the bloodstream or tissues of a patient. Additionally, glove boxes in active patient rooms are susceptible to aerosolized microbes (bioaerosols) that are introduced by every day activities and can settle on surfaces, including glove boxes. We therefore propose that NSDG are exposed to multiple sources of microbial contamination making the simple act of donning gloves a possible mode of HAI transmission. Experiments described herein will assess the types and quantities of microbes found on used NSDG boxes in active patient rooms over time. Importantly, we will also assess the efficacy of our Single Spense glove system to limit the microbial contamination transferred to gloves from both the hands of HCW and the bioaerosols present in healthcare settings. Single Spense gloves are packaged in a manner to limit contact of the gloves/glove box with the hands of HCW and to bioaerosols. The use of Single Spense gloves could change the management and delivery of healthcare in a simple cost-effective manner that will improve the quality of patient care by preventing HAI transmission.