Medical Mobile Shelving

Medical Supply Room Storage Challenges

The typical design of a medical supply room creates many challenges for medical professionals. First, traditional supply shelving makes inefficient use of space. For example, large gaps are often left between shelves so that nurses can reach into storage bins or retrieve products stored at the back of the shelves.

It’s often challenging to access stored supplies as well. For example, it may be difficult for nurses to reach supplies stored on the top level of a shelving unit. And when shelves are overcrowded, it’s even harder to retrieve supplies stored at the back of a shelf behind several other products.

When space is limited in a supply room, storage often becomes overcrowded and disorganized. Without a straightforward organization system, it’s hard for nurses to locate the necessary supplies. It’s also challenging to keep track of inventory levels, which could result in stockouts of critical products.

If problems like these are plaguing your medical supply room, you need a better storage system. Medical mobile shelving can revolutionize your medical supply storage, improving organization and efficiency in your supply room.

How Medical Mobile Shelving Works

Medical mobile shelving consists of shelving units containing space-efficient basket drawers for supply storage. While these shelving units can stand on their own (with or without wheels), they make the best use of space when installed as a mobile storage system.

Double-sided basket shelving units are installed on floor tracks in a medical mobile shelving system. Instead of having static aisle space between each shelving unit, the mobile shelving units slide back and forth on the rails, compacting together when not in use and accessible by a single moving aisle. The compacting storage system allows you to fit almost double the amount of shelving into your medical supply room. Visit our online store to see our healthcare storage products.

Color Coding with Medical Mobile Shelving

Medical mobile shelving is an excellent solution for increasing the storage capacity of your medical supply room. But you can reap even more benefits by color-coding your medical supply storage for better organization.

Medical mobile shelving facilitates color coding to identify the locations of supplies quickly. The basket handles display interchangeable color strips to denote the category of the stored supplies.

To use the system effectively, assign a unique color to each category of supplies. Examples of categories include IV supplies, respiratory equipment, wound care, gastro/GI, orthopedics, urology, cardiovascular, hygiene, procedure, etc. You can choose from over 20 label colors.

Once staff learns what each color indicates, they’ll be able to identify the location of the supplies they need at a glance, cutting down retrieval time. And if you have multiple supply rooms, implement a standardized color coding system so that no matter what supply room a clinician enters, they can always find what they need immediately.

Medical Mobile Shelving Case Study

One hospital implemented a medical mobile shelving system when they renovated their supply room. Before the renovation, the supply room used rolling wire shelving units stuffed with plastic storage bins and products. The cluttered system was disorganized and made inefficient use of space. The hospital replaced this inefficient shelving with a color-coded mobile shelving system.

The installation process was quick and convenient. First, the mobile shelving system was preassembled in a remote location to minimize interference with the department’s daily operations. Next, they removed the existing wire racks from the supply room to make room for the new system. Following this, the installation team pre-installed new tracks on the floor. The team mounted rolling dollies onto the tracks and then mounted the mobile shelving units onto the dollies.

The new system makes the hospital’s medical supply storage much more space-efficient and better organized. The new basket drawer units have nine levels compared to the previous six-level wire racks, providing the supply room with 33% more storage. And by eliminating static aisle space with the mobile floor tracks, the storage capacity of the medical supply room increased by an additional 40%. Read about more applications for high-density medical storage here.

Benefits of Medical Mobile Shelving

Space Savings

One of the most significant benefits of medical mobile shelving is space savings. The basket drawer system increases medical supply storage capacity in two ways. First, each basket level is fully extendable. Thus, there’s no need to leave excess space between storage levels for reaching into bins. The space-efficient design provides more storage levels than a traditional storage rack, increasing the storage capacity of each unit.

Further, the mobile system eliminates static aisle space, allowing a supply room to recover up to 40% of floor space compared to traditional static shelving. With this additional space, hospitals can increase stock levels of critical supplies or consolidate several smaller supply areas into one centralized supply room.

Better Organization

Implementing a mobile shelving system with color-coded labeling will improve the organization of your medical supply room. The space-efficient design of the mobile shelving system increases storage capacity to alleviate overcrowding and provide a cleaner, neater appearance.

Adding color-coded labels to your mobile shelving makes it easy for nurses and supply stockers to find the storage location they’re looking for quickly, thus enhancing productivity and reducing stockouts. (Need a better inventory management system to help minimize stockouts and surpluses? Learn about the two-bin Kanban system here.)

Quicker Access

The medical mobile shelving system allows nurses to access the supplies and equipment they need to do their jobs more quickly. First, the color coding system allows nurses to see at a glance where to find the supplies using color recognition. Then, the basket drawer system makes it easy to retrieve these supplies.

The baskets fully extend from the shelving unit, providing unencumbered access to items stored at the back of the drawer. The baskets can also tilt to provide better visibility and ergonomic access; top-level baskets angle so nurses can easily reach supplies.

Customization

Medical mobile shelving systems are modular and easily customized to meet your needs. The system features three basket depths to hold supplies of different sizes, tool-free basket repositioning, and an adjustable divider system for storing multiple supplies in a single basket. You can also integrate wire shelving between the basket units for storing bulk items.

Improved Morale

By improving organization and accessibility with a medical mobile shelving system, you can relieve staff frustrations and improve morale. With supplies readily available and easily accessible, nurses can spend less time and effort searching for supplies and more time providing high-quality patient care.