The evolution of surgical glove technology

Sponsored by Ansell

Adam Christman, DVM, MBA: Hey everyone, Dr. Adam Christman, Chief Veterinary Officer here at DVM360. I'm joined by Martin Jewell, Associate Director of Alternate Care of Ansell. Thank you so much for being here.

Martin Jewell: Thank you.

Christman: We're going to talk today about something very important in our field and that is surgical gloves. As of December 2016, the FDA banned powdered surgical gloves and absorbable powder used for lubricating surgical gloves due to health risks for healthcare providers, patients, and other individuals. What arose of this ruling were companies like Ansell who wanted to make safe powder-free gloves. However, Ansell decided to take that a step further by developing various types of gloves to make them easier to use during appointments and also in surgeries. As a result, the market has shifted, with veterinary professionals now relying on powder-free surgical gloves while Ansell's innovative donning technology offers a solution for easier applications when needed. This commitment to safety and usability ensures a higher standard of care for both patients and healthcare providers. So, with that, let's talk about this. What sets Ansell's gloves apart from the competitors out there?

Jewell: The powder to powder-free happened in the human side almost 20 years ago. So, we had designed gloves with what we call DermaShield. It's our proprietary hand donning technology. It is a silicone that is compounded as we make the glove that allows the hand to don while it's damp. It works with emollients, it also works with sanitizers, so that you're not blocking and you're not breaking through gloves when you're donning. You have less waste, you can perform your procedure faster and better.

Christman: Excellent. There's so much innovation and safety so how has this evolved in the types of gloves that we have today?

Jewell: Well, today is no longer just a white surgical glove with no donning. We've evolved into micro gloves, we have textured surgical gloves. We also have synthetic ranges for folks with latex allergies. So, we have neoprene, polyisoprene, and we have PI hybrid, which is a combination of neoprene and polyisoprene for those with latex allergies. But our whole range of products, one of the things that we feature on each of our gloves are the DermaShield technology and then we also have what's called sure-fit technology. That's to prevent the cuff from rolling down because you've got a slick polymer on a gown and you can have cuff roll down and then you can compromise your sterility. If you notice, we have an ergoform technology on our formers so that means less hand fatigue, less worked time off, less problems with your hands and strength. So, this particular glove that you're looking at, I don't know if you want to try to put that on, that is an Encore micro glove.

We found that within the vet procedures, and you see how nicely that goes on, now that was a dry hand but we'll take it with a damp hand as well. That is a glove that was designed for cardiovascular, peripheral vascular surgery years ago and ophthalmics. You notice the color’s brown because folks work under light. They don't want the glare. It's 20% thinner so you can feel the small suture and the small needle as you conduct your procedures no matter how small or how fragile that procedure is.

Christman: That's great. I'm thinking of the ophthalmology procedures too with such delicate tissue and the suture material is so fine and you can definitely feel. I have good dexterity with it so that's pretty good. I like it.

Jewell: Yeah. Then the next step from that is if you have spay and neuter procedures and you're using animals with a lot of fatty tissue, we have a fully textured very aggressive latex surgical glove. Orthopedics now are becoming more common in the veterinarian practice. So, we have thicker orthopedic gloves. Double-gloving has become sometimes a priority. So, we have an under-glove, we have a glove-in-glove double-glove system out of the poutch, the only one out of the pouch and the only one in the world. And while we do this, we keep all of the things that are so important now to environmental and safety and social governance on our packaging and our missions. We want all of our packaging to be fully recyclable. By the year 2026, we're going to reuse the water and all of our plants are employed. We own and we employ those individuals there. We have our research and development centers there and we do our own sterilization there. That's a big deal now. After seeing the global shutdowns, we have three manufacturing facilities in three different countries, each with their own sterilization ability. So that gives us a lot of flexibility in the future.

Christman: That’s fantastic. And I hear something about WEI, what does that say?

Jewell: That’s really just the whole umbrella: the worker improvement and the technology of all of our technologies combined together under our one umbrella with Ansell. So, the DermaShield is what enhances the gloves’ ability to go on a damp hand and where that really comes into play is if you're doing repetitive surgeries over and over and over and you're scrubbing and you're going back and forth and you're getting gloves on your damp hand, you don't have to stop. You don't have rips and tears, you don't have the waste, and you've got the ergo form technology on the gloves, so you've got a more comfortable feel as you go through the work day.

Christman: That's fantastic. So much easier for workflow. And talk to me more about the Ansell sure-fit technology that's available.

Jewell: The sure-fit technology is to ensure that when this is up over a gown, that it's a sticky band on the inside of the glove, so that it does not roll back down, and it does not compromise the surgical technique of the procedure. So, you know all of these technologies together make a better experience with using our gloves.

Christman: Excellent. Nice. I see that we have a lot of products over here focused on safety. Tell me a little bit about that.

Jewell: Well, this is our Sandel® safety solutions line. We have a whole portfolio of safety solution products that were designed by healthcare workers. All of these ideas for products came from healthcare workers and these are designed for never events in the OR space. We’re sharing that more now in the animal health space to make sure you're doing the correct procedure on the correct patient and on the correct body part.

Christman: Working on the right leg and sort of the left leg and so forth, those are excellent.

Jewell: Just following more with the OSHA guidelines that are required now for the veterinary hospital. We also have a full offering of non-latex disposable examination gloves. Dental practice has become very prominent now, and so we have half sizes in our exam gloves, so that is a big thing. If you can't find your fit, we've got the small mediums, and we've got the medium and the smalls that I call this smediums.

Christman: Oh, that's great, I didn't know that. Wow, that's really cool. And where can we learn more?

Jewell: You can learn more at Ansell.com for our surgical gloves and our examination gloves, and you can go to Ansell.com/Sandel for our safety solutions products.

Christman: Great, thank you for all the great work you and the company do. Thank you for being here.

Jewell: Yeah, thank you.

Christman: And thank you for tuning in here, Products360. We'll see you next time. Take care, everybody.