Ideas That Work: Organize Your Supply Room Like a Supermarket

SHOPPING FOR SUPPLIES A trip to the supermarket is so much more efficient when you have an organized grocery list. Same goes for a trip to your supply room.

Organize Your Supply Room Like a Supermarket

Instead of walking back and forth across the supply room to get the items you need in different aisles, organize your supplies like the aisles in a grocery store. You start at one end of the room and work your way toward the opposite door. Similar to a supermarket, we label supplies on the shelf with the product name, the materials management ordering number and a bar code.

We also place blue or pink stickers on the shelves to indicate whether the item is an in-house item (blue) or a special-ordered item (pink) that requires a purchase order to the vendor. We place a laminated pink card within special-order items to trigger that it's time to reorder. On the card we mark the date we placed the order and when we expect it to arrive. This removes the guesswork of whether we've reordered the item.

Elaine Gibson, BSN, RN, CNOR
Goshen (Ind.) Hospital
[email protected]