Project Description:

Medical exam gloves are the most commonly used form of PPE in the medical field, primarily for all patient and physician interactions. During the COVID-19 pandemic, medical exam glove usage became even more commonplace while the issues of medical waste and conservation of PPE became necessary to solve.

Currently, medical exam gloves are tightly packaged in cardboard boxes with one major opening for users to dispense gloves. According to user interview data, approximately 41% of the time gloves are improperly dispensed which causes medical waste. Improperly dispensing gloves is when more than one glove is dispensed from the box at a time, this is typically due to gloves sticking together. This leads to medical waste because this causes contamination on gloves from either falling to the floor from the box or being pushed back in the box from non-gloved hands.

Our solution is the Glove Savior. It is an innovative design on how gloves will be dispensed to decrease medical waste. The Glove Savior allows for the use of a wand-like object to remove the gloves from being stuck together and allows for the user to personalize how they need gloves to be dispensed. Our new design also includes a spring loaded platform to raise gloves to the top opening of the dispenser to allow easier access to gloves. Lastly, the Glove Savior uses clear acrylic siding to allow for users to see into the box, and a removable acrylic top to refill the box when the user sees the glove supply running low.

The Glove Savior can reduce medical waste from 41% to 6%, saving the US medical industry $2 million per day in emergency rooms alone. The Glove Savior can also reduce waste in the home industry, food service industry, and research lab industry.