How many gloves does your clinic use per year? Find out with our free calculator.
A patient of yours for the past ten years arrives to your clinic. You greet her and briefly catch up on how she is doing since her last visit. As she sits down in the examination chair, you automatically put on examination gloves.
So does your assistant.
Within five minutes, you can confirm that her examination problem isn’t one. You remind her to keep up the good brushing and flossing. And you assure her by welcoming a phone call if something flairs up again.
Within ten minutes, your clinic used 2 pairs of examination gloves. If you see on average 20 patients per day, that’s at least 40 pairs of gloves per day for your clinic.
Safety of patients is a top priority! This means properly using examination gloves for oral care. Yet, deciding to use more renewable products versus those derived from oil is a decision you can make.
Do you know how many gloves your clinic uses per year?
We started asking a few dentists in our network the question, “do you know how many gloves your clinic uses per month?”
Without surprise, they did not. So, we began a case study to explore what kind of consumption this came out to AND whether there are “what if…?” questions for it.
Before we begin to share our case study, let’s play a little game. Start by writing down your estimate of how many gloves a dental clinic uses per month. After writing it down, put it shortly aside.
Step 1: Estimate Unit Quantities
In order to begin, we need to form assumptions about quantities for a dental clinic. In our case study, we explore one of our partners’ dental clinics - “medium-sized”, private practice in the heart of the Alps. Let’s call it “Alpine Smiles”.
There, they typically see 20 patients per day. Overall, they have six employees (including themselves, 2 dentists), who have been serving the local town for over three generations. They perform every kind of oral care possible.
We assume they use three pairs of gloves per patient visit (for all employees engaged in that visit).
Our leading assumptions:
2 dentists per practice
4 assistants who physically interact with patients
20 patients seen per day
3 pairs of gloves used on average per patient visit
23 working days per month
Step 2: Estimate Breakdown & Prices
Next, we found out that Alpine Smiles made the choice decades ago to use 100% renewable natural rubber latex (powerless) gloves.
Even during the ’90’s, local health regulators did not see the quick rise of latex allergies in the general population as other regions did (e.g. UK and USA).
Therefore, the hazard of natural rubber latex gloves on the local population was little to none. And beyond this, the dentists preferred to consume a product from a renewable source rather than derived from oil (nitrile).
Regarding price, we learn that their regional supplier can provide them natural rubber latex gloves at around 8.00 EUR per box.
Now, let us add a breakdown of type of gloves and prices per box purchased:
100% natural rubber latex
8.00 EUR per glove box
Step 3: Calculate Total Quantities & Costs
Lastly, we looked at how many gloves Alpine Smiles consumes per day, per week, per month, and year. What came out surprised us - there are truly more gloves required than we anticipated.
Thousands of examination gloves are required by dental clinics per month!
How close was your initial estimate compared to the calculator estimate?
What was your initial estimate? Did it compare to your calculated estimate from the free tool?
Free Calculator to Estimate Your Glove Consumption
Do you know your glove consumption?
Want to model potential glove consumptions?
Feel welcomed to download a copy of our Free Calculator “How many gloves does your clinic use?”. You can get the free glove use calculator here (Google Docs).
To use it, click on the “file” and “Download a Copy”.
Enter and change the input assumptions.
Explore the output figures of your clinic.
If you wish to contribute your clinic’s estimates for our community study, please feel welcomed to share your figures to Sustainabilitydentistry@gmail.com.
This helps out the community — Later this year, we will share the findings as we continue to explore ways to reduce consumption and use more renewable products.
Click on the picture to get your free calculator.
“What if … ?” Questions We Asked Ourselves After The Case Study
Alpine Smiles is one dental clinic of the many practices in Europe. Never the less, the tendency we came across:
We underestimate the quantity of used examination gloves that a dental clinic goes through in a month.
Because we look for ways to help achieve the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals #12 (read more on our last post, Sustainable Dentistry: Because there is no planet B), could we reduce waste? Most likely, clinics couldn’t because we cannot cut corners when it comes to patient safety.
What if we could ensure that the majority of examination gloves used are from natural rubber latex?
We know that during the 1980’s and 1990’s latex allergies in certain geographic populations became apparent, and the implementation of nitrile gloves (derived from oil) aided in a safe alternative for healthcare practitioners and patients.
Yet, over the decades, advancements on the product production and declining counts of populations having latex allergies signal a new time to look at renewable gloves become more than a slim majority of gloves used.
Given this is an interesting topic, we look forward to exploring it in upcoming posts.
Saluti,
Tessa and Jesse
