5 Important Steps For Efficient Medical Storage

Organising a medical consumables storage system can be difficult and time-consuming. However, we have listed five key steps that can efficiently assist you can sort and organise your hospital storage, consumables and pharmacy shelving efficiently.

By utilising these steps you can:

• Guarantee the safety of your staff and patients
• Achieve high hygiene standards
• Recognise stock shortages and other problems faster 
• Refine and better your inventory system
• Find products easily and efficiently

Take a look at how Lismore Hospital set up their Sterile stock solution

Step One: Clear out old storage and supplies

• Go through your current stock holdings and assess the need to keep and remove anything old or unnecessary.
• Sort what you wish to keep into medical storage bins. 

Step Two: Arrange your medical storage area

• Organise your consumables into medical storage that suits your needs such as Mesh-Pak bins and either stack, hang or place them in a shelving system.
• Categorise and label your storage, so it is simple to find and put away your items. Download your free colour coding medical storage sheet below. 
• Ensure your area is clutter free by designating specific areas for certain materials. You can code these areas by choosing different colour medical storage bins for each particular need. 

Step Three: Clean 

• Look through your existing and new items, checking that they are still high quality. 
• By ensuring the condition of your storage units are high quality from the start you will be able to identify any signs of early damage. 

Step Four: Create a system 

• Once you have cleaned everything and decided what to keep, it is essential to have a system of where you wish to place everything.
• This system will make finding things easy, which is fundamental to ensure you and your staff are working as efficiently as possible.
• Storage systems can include colour coding, size coding, labels and removable storage baskets.

Step Five: Teach and show your Staff 

• By training your staff on the organisation of your storage system and the benefits of storing your medical materials effectively, you will not only ensure consistency, but will also create a safe and efficient workspace. 

Fischer Plastics has a wide range of Hospital Grade Plastic solutions and can help organise your workspace to improve productivity and safety. 

To help you organise your space we have created a downloadable Medical Coding Sheet. Please feel free to print out this helpful sheet and use it in your facility.