Kaplan Diagnostic A Practice Test

Maintaining sterility during a dressing change is the key idea here. Once you’ve opened the sterile pack and donned sterile gloves, the area around your hands and the immediate field must stay uncontaminated. If you realize that dressings are missing, you should not reach for or expose yourself to non-sterile items or move away from the patient to fetch things. Staying at the bedside with the sterile field intact while a nursing assistant retrieves the missing dressings keeps the risk of contamination lowest. Only after the missing supplies arrive should you proceed with the dressing change. This approach avoids contaminating the sterile field by not stepping away or re-prepping unnecessarily. It’s appropriate to request help to bring in what’s needed, but the critical point is to maintain your position at the patient’s side and keep the sterile area secure until you can continue.