What should be done after sanitizing hands in the buffer room?

After sanitizing hands in the buffer room, the next step is to don sterile gloves. This action is crucial in maintaining a sterile environment essential for compounding sterile preparations. Once hands are sanitized, they are no longer in direct contact with pathogens or contaminants, but to fully ensure safety and prevent any potential contamination of sterile products, wearing sterile gloves is a necessary step.

Donning sterile gloves serves multiple purposes: it acts as a barrier to protect both the compounder and the sterile product from contamination. This is particularly important in the buffer room, where the risk of microbial contamination is heightened due to the handling of sterile materials and equipment. The gloves must be sterile to maintain the integrity of the compounded products, especially in critical areas where sterility is paramount.

Other steps, such as putting on a gown, a face mask, or washing and drying hands again, may also be important in the overall procedure, but they do not follow immediately after hand sanitization in the standard sequence of actions required for sterile compounding. Instead, the immediate next step after sanitizing hands should always be to don sterile gloves to secure the sterility of the preparation process right from the start.