Steps for Donning (Putting on) Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) (Nursing)

00:04 Welcome to the series on personal protective equipment for healthcare personnel.

00:09 So first of all, what is PPE? Well, it's much quicker to say then personal protective equipment.

00:24 So you're going to hear the abbreviation PPE quite often.

00:28 And this is going to include our gloves, our gowns, our goggles or face shield, and also our masks.

00:35 Now let's talk about, why is this important for us in the health care team? Well, it's got some really big benefits to it.

00:44 It protects healthcare personnel by creating a barrier between us and infectious germs.

00:50 Also think about each patient room that you may go into, now in clinicals or maybe as your assignment as a nurse, and this is going to protect patients by preventing the spread of infections.

01:03 So we have certain personal protective equipment otherwise known as PPE for different precautions that are ordered by the physician.

01:11 And just know when we talk about precautions, this is put in place depending on the type of infectious organism that your patient may have.

01:20 Now, the first one that we see here are our gown and gloves.

01:24 This is really common in regards to contact precautions.

01:28 Now gown and gloves are the most standard again, when we talk about contact precautions.

01:33 But just know there's some slight variations to this.

01:37 Sometimes contact precautions can include like a hairnet for example.

01:43 Also, don't forget to think about your droplet precautions.

01:47 Now here, we're going to have to require surgical masks when we are within 3 ft of the patient.

01:53 Now with airborne precautions, this precautions a little bit different.

01:58 This requires our particulate respirator not just a surgical mask, so that's a key difference.

02:05 And a special negative pressure isolation room that helps trap infectious particles.

02:12 Now let's take a look at the order of when we put on our PPE.

02:16 So there's going to be some variations to this but many times when we don or put on our PPE, we're goind to put on our gown first, then our mask or respirator, then our goggles or face shield and lastly, our gloves.

02:32 Now let's take a look at putting on the gown itself.

02:36 This is important because we want to make sure this gown fully protects us.

02:40 So we're going to cover the whole torso from the neck all the way down to the knees.

02:45 We want to ensure that the gown covers the arms to the end of the wrists and wraps around the back.

02:52 Now here's something you may see the nurses not do.

02:56 Many times we've got to make sure the ties in the back at the neck and the waist or fasten.

03:02 Sometimes nurses I will be honest, you'll see them be in a hurry and we don't fasten these.

03:07 It's actually important to do so because we don't want our PPE to fall forward when we're doing patient care.

03:14 Now let's take a look at the next step of putting on our mask or respirator.

03:19 Now this should be secured here as you see in the image at the head and the back of the neck.

03:25 And then many of those either masks or the respirator, we need to make sure we press on the bridge of the nose for secure fit.

03:33 Now for mask, make sure the fit is snug to your face.

03:37 And remember this needs to go below your chin.

03:41 Now remember surgical masks and respirators are different.

03:45 So respirators we need to make sure we do a special fit check when we are wearing a respirator.

03:53 Now when you hear fit check, what does that mean? We also call this fit testing.

03:58 And with a certain type of respirator, this is really important.

04:02 Now this is a series of tests and assessments performed by a trained evaluator.

04:08 This commonly occurs when maybe you're a new nurse at a new facility, they're going to go through into orientation and you're going to do a fit testing.

04:17 So the goal is to make sure the respirator forms a tight seal on the provider's face.

04:23 So if you take a look at this image here, this may seem kind of odd here.

04:26 You see this big white space suit cap.

04:30 And this is what we wear as an employee when we're getting a fit test done.

04:35 So the employee, as you see here has the white hood.

04:38 We also have our respirator on.

04:41 Now the evaluator is going to spray in that hood an aerosol, something like a saccharin for example, something sweet tasting.

04:50 And now as an employee I'm going to see, can I taste anything with my respirator on and see if we have any particulates that are getting in the mass? Because again, it's important that this respirator is going to protect us from any airborne particulates getting into that mask.

05:09 Now let's take a look at putting on the goggles or face shield.

05:13 Now place the goggles and or shield over your face and eyes and adjust to fit.

05:19 Make sure this isn't going to slide down for example during patient care.

05:24 The next step is we're going to put on our gloves.

05:27 Now we want to make sure when we do this, we pull the gloves over the rest of our isolation gown.

05:33 We want to make sure all of our skin is protected.

05:37 Now we are ready to go take care of our patient.

05:44 Let's look at the order for putting on PPE otherwise known as personal protective equipment.

05:51 You may also hear the term donning PPE.

05:54 So let's take a look at a few tips and tricks with this type of equipment.

05:58 So the first thing to know is that we usually start putting on our PPE, our gown first.

06:04 Now many of our gowns are going to look something like this.

06:07 They're disposable.

06:08 They're easy to use and they're for one time use.

06:12 Just know when we're talking about gowns, some facilities may carry nylon gowns, for example.

06:18 But again, PPE is meant for that particular patient and not your other patients, we do not want to spread the risk of infection.

06:26 So we're talking about a gown.

06:28 It ideally should cover your torso and at least all the way to your knees.

06:33 We also have ties to secure that gown around your neck and around your waist.

06:38 Now you may see a lot of healthcare personnel we don't tie those.

06:42 But ideally I recommend it.

06:45 Many times we're in there working with our patient and when we lean forward or move around, that gown can fall forward and then we are not protected.

06:53 So I recommend making sure you secure your gown.

06:57 After we've donned our gown, we're going to don our mask or our respirator depending on the type of precautions that are ordered by your physician.

07:05 And with our mask, our surgical mask may look like something like this.

07:09 Once we either put it behind our head and behind our neck or around our ears, we're going to put this on and then make sure we secure it around the bridge of our nose.

07:20 Now next, once we've donned our mask or our respirator, we'll then be able to put on either our goggles, which can look something like this or our eye shields.

07:30 So with our goggles, we're not going to use just any goggles, many times the ideal situation at these goggles wrap around to make sure we're fully protected in the room.

07:41 And then next, we're going to make sure we don our gloves, of course our standard gloves.

07:46 Here's the thing about our gloves.

07:48 When we put these on, make sure they go over the cover of the gown.

07:53 Now let's take a look have a quick demonstration of how we don our PPE.