Welcome back everyone, to Inside Infection Control, our video blog here at CDC s Project First Line.
I'm Abby Carlson. It's great to have you here.
Today we're going to continue talking about PPE, and today's topic is going to be your gown.
Why are gowns part of the recommended PPE for COVID-19 and other diseases? Let's find out.
So, like gloves, using your gown protects you,
and also keeps you from accidentally spreading germs into your work environment.
It's important for this thing called contact transmission
that we talked about before--
the spread of germs, from surfaces to people and from people to surfaces by touch.
This spread this way is important not just for COVID-19,
but for many diseases in health care that we're concerned about,
like C. difficile, MRSA and VRE.
So how does this all work?
Well, germs that get on your clothes can spread to you,
but they can also spread to other surfaces and other people.
Gowns are there to keep the stuff off of your clothes so that you don't have to change clothes
every time there's something that gets on them, or on you, at work.
And when you're at work, you actually probably get things on your clothes pretty often.
A patient's bed linens are almost always dirty with either sweat or body fluids like urine or blood.
And so if you lean up against that,
you're leaning up against that and getting it on your clothes.
Or if you think about when you're caring for a child who throws up on your arm,
or you're bathing a patient who might be ill, they might have diarrhea,
and the water splashes on your clothes, on your chest as you're cleaning.
In these cases having a gown keeps stuff from getting on your clothes,
and we know this happens all the time.
So the gown protects parts of you that are most likely to get body fluids
and germs and other stuff on it.
They're not a full body cover because they usually don't need to be.
You don't do a lot of jobs that involve your ankles, for example,
but there are some situations where you can get stuff
on your legs, on your shoes, like labor and delivery.
And then you need to think about different PPE, different gowns.
So surgical gowns are specially made
to protect against some of those bigger fluid splashes, for example,
and it's designed for what might happen in surgery.
Plus, of course, it's sterile because you need to keep the environment sterile.
So that's a different gown from the isolation gowns that we use every day in health care.
And it's important to think through each time you're doing something,
what kind of gown suits best what you're about to do.
Now, removing and disposing of your gown properly
can keep those germs out of the environment so that you don't spread things around.
What do we mean by this?
Well, just like you have gloves,
when you get gloves dirty, you take them off.
When you get your gown dirty, it's important to remove it before you do other things,
before you move on to the next patient or the next task.
That might mean that you're in the middle of doing something and you get your gown dirty,
and you need to change it so things don't spread around.
If you can't do it right away, wait until it's safe,
but as soon as you're able to, get that new gown as soon as you can
so that you can prevent spread of things on your gown
onto other surfaces in the room.
One thing to say--it is important to try not to touch surfaces
as you're moving around with your gown.
Any of us who have tried to work our way through a small patient room knows that's a challenge.
So it's not that it's going to be perfect, but pay attention to it
so that you avoid spreading germs as best you can.
Alright.
Again, your gown should fit you well.
It's not gonna be high fashion, it's not going to be a perfect fit,
but it should basically fit you
in a way where you're not going to be dragging it around because it's too big,
or where it's not going to be pulled apart because it's too small,
or it's gonna be preventing you from moving easily because it's too tight.
So always make sure to get a gown that you can work reasonably in
and that fits you pretty well.
And then when you take it off, take it off in a way
that keeps those things from spreading around.
So for example, you roll the gown inward as you take it off
so that the dirty part stays on the inside and doesn't get on your hands.
You roll it up and you can dispose it in the garbage if it's a disposable gown
or you can put it in the laundry hamper, send it for reprocessing if it's a reusable gown.
One more thing that we talked about in the episode on gloves that we should talk about here.
We don't use more than one gown at a time.
We don't double up.
The same thing applies for gowns, as it does for gloves.
Two gowns don't protect you any more, in health care, in the usual things that we encounter.
And it can even do harm.
Those extra layers can get in your way, they can trip you up.
And even if you take that top layer off when it gets dirty,
it raises the possibility that the bottom layer is going to get dirty in the process
and then you spread things around your environment and to other patients.
So please check out our video on gloves for more information about that.
To sum it all up, you can see how it is important to wear your gown correctly
and at the right time to make sure you're not spreading things
to other patients or to yourself.
And to keep germs off of surfaces so that they remain clean
and don't spread more infection around your workplace.
As always, don't hesitate to check us out on Facebook, Twitter,
or on the CDC's YouTube channel where some of our videos are also posted.
We are online as well, CDC.gov/ProjectFirstLine
and we will see you back for the next episode.