Working in an often fast-paced and high-stakes environment like a hospital requires impeccable organization to run smoothly. Optimizing supply storage ensures necessary materials are on hand and staff members can quickly locate what they need.
Hospitals typically require separate storage for sterile supply rooms versus easy access to sterile supply within operating and procedure rooms. Both areas store the same items but in different ways. When choosing a storage solution for your hospital supply room, some essential qualities include organization, tracking, visibility, air circulation and ease of cleaning. Let’s look at four supply room storage solutions to maximize efficiency.
What Storage Solutions Can Help Meet My Facility’s Needs and Requirements?
1. High-Density Storage Systems
If your facility needs to increase storage capacity in a confined space, high-density storage systems (also known as compact or movable storage systems) can be an appealing option. As an alternative to traditional, static shelving that requires a large footprint and allows minimal customization, compact systems use moving aisles to save up to 50% of the usable area in your space. With the extra room, you can add more supplies and equipment or simply enjoy the freedom to move around.
For example, Kentucky’s Owensboro Healthcare System installed high-density storage in their surgical and specialty cores. Products like Spacesaver carriages, case-style shelving, EZ-rail with bins and Ideal Environments suture/catheter/sorter racks helped the facility streamline its storage and improve efficiency, accuracy and employee morale.
2. Vertical Carousels
Rotomat from Hänel uses a vertical carousel system to provide up to 60% more storage capacity in your space. Besides its compact construction, Rotomat offers a built-in inventory management system that delivers the exact file, instrument or medication you need right when you need it. For an automated storage and retrieval system that can save floor space, increase productivity, expand inventory control, improve inventory security and create better ergonomics, look to Rotomat.
Rotomat is also real-world tested, as an example from John Muir Medical Center demonstrates. When their central sterile processing department (CPD) faced a crisis of storage scarcity and accessibility, they opted for 11 Rotomat carousels to maximize the capacity of their spaces. Besides the ease of having records delivered on demand, the improvement in efficiency enabled the CPD to weather the storms of relocating department offices, implementing new inventory management software and undergoing an expansion of the hospital network.
3. Bin Shelving
Consider bin shelving for a streamlined look with a range of practical benefits. Available in plastic or metal wire, bins are lightweight and easily configurable to optimize the storage of your facility’s smaller items, such as cups, oxygen tubes, dosing instruments, sample collection equipment and pharmaceuticals. In addition, each bin’s open design provides greater visibility, so your staff can locate precisely what they need without spending a lot of time searching.
Boulder Community Hospital also discovered a financial benefit when they installed bin shelving to organize their smaller necessities. Their previous storage allowed products to spill on the floor, which cost the facility money because those items had to be disposed of to avoid contamination. However, the Spacesaver’s FrameWRX HD system, with built-in bin shelving, kept everything in place. With less waste to worry about, staff members could focus on providing the best patient care.
4. Stainless Steel Cabinets
Many environments within a hospital utilize modular casework. For example, operating rooms, procedure rooms and sterile supply areas have specific activity and storage needs, and infection control, durability and ease of cleaning are high on that list. Stainless steel cabinets offer all these benefits and the ability to grow with your needs.
Stainless steel cabinets are an excellent storage solution for pharmacies, labs and operating rooms. They can withstand the frequent use and heavy chemical cleanings necessary for any medical setting while allowing high customizability to adapt your hospital’s storage to its changing needs. Manufacturing these steel cases according to SEFA-8 Metal Laboratory Grade Casework standards, which measures cabinet and shelf load capacity, door and drawer impact and surface finish resistance, means these cabinets will stand the test of time.
How Can Smarter Supply Room Storage Help Me?
The right storage solution will depend largely on each facility’s needs, budget and goals, but any of the above will benefit any space. Besides saving space, smarter hospital supply room storage can help you control costs and improve patient care.
Each of these solutions is beneficial on its own, but they also work exceptionally well together. Our specialists collaborate with you to find what works with your facility’s unique budget, needs and space concerns. Contact a storage specialist in your area today to start building your solution.
