Which statement best demonstrates proper hygiene practice before donning sterile gloves in a hospital setting?

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Multiple Choice

Which statement best demonstrates proper hygiene practice before donning sterile gloves in a hospital setting?

The essential idea is to clean your hands before you put on sterile gloves to keep the sterile field uncontaminated. Performing hand hygiene first removes as many microbes as possible from the hands, so when you don sterile gloves, you’re not transferring organisms to a patient or sterile equipment. This step protects the patient during invasive care. Why the other ideas don’t fit: keeping gloves on after touching non-sterile surfaces would contaminate the gloves and patient, and gloves are meant to be single-use and discarded after contact with non-sterile or contaminated items. Reusing sterile gloves is not allowed, as it breaks sterility. Avoiding antiseptic cleansing of a port or access site undermines infection control, since antiseptic prep reduces the risk of introducing pathogens when accessing a port.

The essential idea is to clean your hands before you put on sterile gloves to keep the sterile field uncontaminated. Performing hand hygiene first removes as many microbes as possible from the hands, so when you don sterile gloves, you’re not transferring organisms to a patient or sterile equipment. This step protects the patient during invasive care.

Why the other ideas don’t fit: keeping gloves on after touching non-sterile surfaces would contaminate the gloves and patient, and gloves are meant to be single-use and discarded after contact with non-sterile or contaminated items. Reusing sterile gloves is not allowed, as it breaks sterility. Avoiding antiseptic cleansing of a port or access site undermines infection control, since antiseptic prep reduces the risk of introducing pathogens when accessing a port.

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